Guardsmen have new sense of purpose

Jeffrey Libby

Monday, Sept. 17, 2001 | 10:01 a.m.

It was an informal ceremony Sunday afternoon in a parking lot outside Floyd Edsall Training Center, an Army National Guard base about two miles north of Nellis Air Force Base.

A platoon of weekend soldiers stood in three squads of about eight men each on the protected side of concrete barriers that had been installed two days before at the armory entrance. With the American flag snapping at half-mast above his head, Sgt. Jim Cummings, a union carpenter, swore himself to six more years of service to the Nevada Army National Guard.

He could have walked away Friday.

But like most members of the 1st Squadron, 221st Cavalry Regiment who trained over the weekend, Cummings, 33, a married father of three children, says he is gearing up for combat.

"Of course I talked it over with my wife," Cummings said. "But my feelings about the Nevada National Guard haven't changed. We've known this could happen all along."

There has been no indication that President Bush will call for guardsmen and reserves beyond the 50,000 called to duty last week. No units in Nevada have been named.

And in 1991, when 265,000 National Guard members and reservists were called up to fight in the Persian Gulf War, the 1st Squadron, 221st Cavalry Regiment also stayed home.

The unit's mission is to serve in tank combat as part of a round-out battalion for a regular Army regiment stationed outside Barstow, Calif.

But this weekend -- just days after terrorist attacks left an estimated 5,000 people dead in New York and Washington, and Congress, in response, approved $40 billion for a war effort -- training no longer felt routine.

"The colonel told us, train like this is your last chance before going to war," said Lt. Joe Ruppe, who served 8 1/2 years in the Army before transferring to the National Guard in December. "It's real now, it's no longer something you read about in the newspaper that's happening in Palestine."

Ruppe, who oversees a platoon of about 30 medics, planned to work with his troops on soldier field skills, medical skills and new ambulance systems.

Specialist Jerome Ewing, 25, a native Las Vegan, spent time checking fluid levels and tightening bolts on "Betsy," the eight-wheeler diesel truck he co-pilots with another guardsman.

Ewing, a youth worker at the nearby Summit View Youth Correctional Center and father of two children, also did checks on himself.

"Am I up to standard? Am I ready to do what I do? When you go to war, you have to ask, 'Do you know your training? Would you be helpful?' "

At home, his wife has been asking the questions, mostly about his immediate future. But Ewing, like the other guardsmen, says he doesn't know if the Las Vegas unit will be called for combat.

"Me and my wife have been closer this week than we've been in a long time," Ewing said.

Since Tuesday's attacks, he's also been taking his children, ages 3 and 5, to amusement parks as often as possible, "squeezing every hour out of every day that I can," he said.

Sgt. Glenn Guy, a Metro Police corrections officer who runs tanker intelligence for the Las Vegas unit, has seen more deliberate preparation for combat. The carelessness of routine is gone, he said.

"The guys have been working their butts off. I don't even have to get on them," he said.

Guy enlisted in the Army in 1982 and served in the 82nd Airborne Division during the military invasion of Grenada in 1983 and as a member of the military police during the invasion of Panama in 1989.

He spent Saturday night eating pizza, watching news on split television screens and checking over his field equipment, "making sure everything works, everything clips."

Lt. Col. Marcy Gower, a spokeswoman for the National Guard, said that the Las Vegas guard unit has "no mission right now except maintaining the security of its own facilities."

But in the hearts and minds of guardsmen, who earn about $230 a month, war appears imminent, almost a foregone conclusion. They say they will go if they're called.

"If you ask people who have been in combat, they say when your face is in the sand, you're not fighting for anyone but the guy next to you," Ruppe said. "But it's your love of your family and this country that carries you there. That sense of honor and duty takes you to the site."