CONTACT: Maj. Joe Trovato | ngwi.pao@mail.mil | 608-242-3048
By Wisconsin National Guard public affairs office
Gov. Tony Evers, Maj. Gen. Paul Knapp, Wisconsin’s adjutant general, and senior Wisconsin Army National Guard leaders will join family and friends in sending off a Wisconsin Army National Guard maintenance unit deploying to Eastern Europe at a 10 a.m. ceremony Saturday, May 29 at Sparta Memorial Field, 725 Pine Street, Sparta, Wisconsin.
The Sparta, Wisconsin-based 107th Maintenance Company, which also has detachments in Viroqua, Wisconsin and Camp Ripley, Minnesota, will mobilize to U.S. European Command in Eastern Europe to conduct maintenance and recovery operations in the region in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve and a multinational joint exercise – Defender – Europe 2021.
The unit, comprised of mechanics, production controllers, signal support specialists, supply specialists, vehicle recovery experts, armament specialists, and a field feeding section will provide maintenance support to U.S. service members and allied forces operating in the theater.
Soldiers from the unit have been heavily engaged in the state’s domestic missions in the past year. Many served in support of Wisconsin’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unit has been part of several civil disturbance responses since last spring.
The unit deployed in 1990 to Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf War, and it mobilized again in 2003 to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin for a maintenance mission in support of the Global War on Terrorism.
The Wisconsin National Guard continues to maintain a high operations tempo with nearly 600 troops mobilized for the state’s response to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, dozens of Airmen from the Wisconsin Air National Guard continue worldwide mobilizations. In addition, approximately 60 Soldiers from the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s Waukesha, Wisconsin-based 135th Medical Company mobilized in late March for deployment to Kuwait and Iraq.
Approximately 35 Soldiers from the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s West Bend, Wisconsin-based Company G, 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation recently returned from the Middle East after conducting medevac missions across the theater for nearly a year.
The 176th Cyber Protection Team also remains mobilized to Fort Meade, Maryland in support of U.S. Cyber Command and Cyber National Mission Force requirements.
Those mobilizations follow on the heels of a historic year for the Wisconsin National Guard that saw more than 1,700 Citizen Soldiers and Airmen mobilize at some point for the COVID response, which began March 12, 2020. The COVID mobilization represents the largest sustained domestic mobilization in Wisconsin National Guard history, which dates to 1837.
More than 4,000 troops mobilized to support four separate state elections where they served as poll workers when the pandemic resulted in a shortage of traditional poll workers, and more than 5,000 troops mobilized to help preserve public safety in Wisconsin cities on multiple occasions in Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine, and Wauwatosa.
Another 550 mobilized to support security efforts at the presidential inauguration in January, and others deployed to California to assist efforts to battle wildfires there last fall.
The Wisconsin National Guard also welcomed home hundreds of other troops from overseas deployments over the past year, including: 400 Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry that completed a deployment to Afghanistan, 160 Soldiers from the 32nd “Red Arrow” Infantry Brigade Combat Team that deployed to Ukraine, the 1967th Contracting Team, which deployed to Djibouti, the 924th Engineer Facilities Detachment, which deployed to Kuwait, and approximately 150 Soldiers from the 829th Engineer Company that returned last fall from a deployment that spanned several countries across the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
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