Saturday, September 11th, marked the largest deployment of National Guardsmen in New Hampshire since World War II. Nearly 800 men and women said goodbye to family and friends. This upcoming year roughly half of the National Guardsmen in New England, upwards of 3,000 citizen soldiers will be arriving in Kuwait this November. Olivia Brecheen, a second year Medical Laboratory Technology major here at UNH will be one of the soldiers joining forces for Operation Enduring Freedom, a change from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Breecheen started at UNH last fall doing Air Force ROTC, Reserve Officers' Training Corps, but after about a month switched to Army ROTC.
The deployment is scheduled to be a year long, Brecheen is set to leave Tuesday, September 21st to join other National Guardsmen at Ft. McCoy in Wisconsin for a month to complete final training and to make sure everyone is ready to ship out overseas. From Wisconsin, soldiers will be flown to various camps in Kuwait to perform missions such as, convoy security, boarder crossing, customs and security, and personal escorts. Private Brecheen’s unit, the 744th Fire Support Coordination (FSC) will be stationed at Camp Beuhring in Kuwait, they will transport supplies and personnel to and from Iraq, provide convoy security, and gather Intel. Brecheen is assigned as an 88M (truck driver) and a gunner for convoy security.
Even though Kuwait is said to be relatively safe in comparison to more recent missions, Brecheen said, “That doesn't mean that the standards or training is any less strict because we need to be ready for anything. Even the amount of gear you have to carry around is quite a lot, especially with the heat.”
When Brecheen first came to UNH she tried out many things before sticking with Army ROTC including working at Wildcat Transit, officiating flag football, crew, and per diem LNA work. The idea of military life is new to Breecheen she was recruited by Sergeant Ladieu into Army ROTC after a few weeks of talking with the instructors of the program. Brecheen signed up for basic training and advanced individual training (AIT) in the spring and finished after nine weeks of studying the army mission, physical fitness, core values, military weapons, chemical warfare, bayonet training, marksmanship, field tactics, etc.
After only spending one weekend with her unit she found out that she was being deployed to Kuwait for a year. Because of Brecheen’s involvement in ROTC they took her off the deployment roster, however, “after thinking and praying about it I decided that I wanted to try to go. So far I feel that I have made the right decision and I am ready to go and do my job over there to the best of my ability,” Brecheen said. Other UNH ROTC students are scheduled to join Brecheen in Kuwait next year.
Brecheen commented on how one of the best things about being in the army is, “how all kinds of people end up coming together and can have something in common even though they might be vastly different”. Brecheen is taking a military leave of absence until she gets back to UNH to continue her degree, she said, “I'm really hoping that we get back in time next year to get right back into school for the fall semester. I'm excited about my major, and want to see where it will take me”. Her plan when she returns to UNH is to be in the simultaneous membership program (SMP), which means being in both, the National Guard and ROTC program.
Private Brecheen is enthusiastic and staying positive about the year to come, she said, “I'm excited to go, let's do this”!
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