A C-17 Globemaster from McChord Air Force Base ferried response teams to Louisiana on Saturday ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Gustav.

The massive jet left shortly after midnight, picked up members and cargo from the 615th Contingency Response Wing at Travis Air Force Base in California and then landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport in suburban New Orleans.

It returned to McChord by mid-afternoon. The aircraft commander expects his crew will be sent to the Gulf Coast again, as early as today.

“It’ll be a matter of whether we can get in and out before the hurricane hits, or if we have to wait until after it hits,” said Maj. Michael Maguire of the 10th Airlift Squadron, 62nd Airlift Wing.

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American soldiers fighting a counterinsurgency. The enemy using hit-and-run tactics. Troops struggling at times to determine who was an ally or an enemy.

But we’re not talking about Iraq. Try a century and a half earlier, when soldiers fought off attacks by Indians at Fort Steilacoom.

The similarities between the two conflicts drew 30 members of the 402nd Brigade Support Battalion, a unit of Fort Lewis’ 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, to the grounds of the old fort – today Western State Hospital in Lakewood – on Thursday.

“Believe it or not, the stuff they’re using here – counterguerilla tactics – is not much different,” said Lt. Col. Steve Allen. “It’s history, but we can take this and apply what we’ve learned here today to the conflicts we’re facing today.”

Thursday’s trip off post began with a tour of the grounds and talks about the history of the fort and the tactics the soldiers used to combat the Indians.

The blurred line between friend and foe resonated with Capt. John Louch.

“There are some examples of how they had to deal with not necessarily knowing who the enemy is,” he said. “Not all the Indians were enemies; many of them were friendly to them. You go over to Iraq, and it’s the exact same scenario.”

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Pop quiz time for all you amateur military historians. Which of the following is true about the USS Kitty Hawk?:

A) It is the Navy's oldest active ship.

B) It was the first aircraft carrier during the Vietnam War to receive a Presidential Unit Citation for “exceptionally meritorious and heroic service."

C) It was the first carrier summoned to deliver troops and aircraft to Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

D) It led a battle group during the initial "shock and awe" campaign against Iraq in 2003.

E) All of the above.

The answer, as you might have guessed, is "All of the above." If only the WASL test were this easy.

Now we're told the "Battlecat" is heading north from San Diego Thursday morning to be decommissioned at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. It's scheduled to arrive early next week, just after Labor Day.

About 1,600 sailors are coming (there's no longer a need for the full 2,800-member crew) and by January the Kitty Hawk will be down to 400 sailors.

The Navy sent out a news release including some "fun facts" about the ship. Here's my favorite:

The “K” in “HAWK” on the ship’s stern is upside down. When welders moved the small steel letter plates from below the fantail -- where they were originally located -- to just below the flight deck sometime in the early 1960s, the final “K” was tacked on upside down. It’s not easy to spot, but if you compare the two “K’s” you’ll see the difference.

For more about this historic aircraft carrier, you can link to its website here.

The first big wave of soldiers from the 4th Squadron, 6th Air Cavalry Regiment is scheduled to return to Fort Lewis from a 15-month deployment Tuesday afternoon.

Kisses and hugs galore await about 270 soldiers who flew, maintained and supported Blackhawk and Kiowa Warrior helicopter missions all over Northern Iraq. They'll be reunited with loved ones at a ceremony scheduled early afternoon Tuesday in a hangar at the Army post. The News Tribune plans to cover it with words and pictures.

There are more than 600 soldiers in the 4-6 Air Cav, with the rest due home throughout August and September, according to a Fort Lewis news release.

This is a unit whose sacrifices began even before it shipped off to Iraq. Two pilots and a crew chief were killed in a nighttime training mission near Enumclaw in December 2006. A memorial was dedicated in their honor in Enumclaw's Veterans Park over the July 4 holiday weekend. Read about it here.

The 4-6 also lost four soldiers in a Blackhawk accident during a mission near Kirkuk. A total of 14 soldiers were killed on Aug. 22, 2007, in what was the worst U.S. helicopter crash in Iraq in 2 1/2 years.

It was the squadron's second fatal crash of the deployment. A pilot from Lacey was killed July 4, 2007, when his Kiowa struck power lines in Mosul.

Great to have these soldiers home, on the ground and safe.

DuPont is hosting a military appreciation celebration this weekend.

It’s called Operation We Love Our Military, and it’s running tonight and Saturday.

The cause for the party?

“The military and their families live in and around the community and help to keep local businesses in operation,” according to a press release. “Needless to say, the businesses of DuPont are very appreciative for their military neighbors and their families.”

The celebration begins tonight at Ross Plaza with a hot dog barbecue and a screening of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” at dusk, or about 8:45 p.m.

On Saturday, a pancake breakfast from 8-11 a.m. kicks things off. Gifts will be raffled off, and there’s a bounce house and face painting for the kids. Farrelli’s Wood Fire Pizza is hosting a music stage and beer garden in its parking lot beginning at 11 a.m. Admission is free.

If you're interested in hearing the speeches at today's farewell ceremony in Auburn, click below:

Gov. Chris Gregoire

Rep. Dave Reichert

Rep. Adam Smith

Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis

Spc. Edward Mears sat atop the hill during the ceremony and silently watched his twin sons play in the grass. Deployment hasn’t been much to celebrate for his household.

“It’s tough,” he said. “It’s tough on me. It’s tough on them. It’s tough on my wife. It’s tough on my daughter. These last 10 days have been like a breeze. They just went so fast.”

Mears, a 36-year-old Tacoma resident, served with the 81st Brigade during its first deployment to Iraq in 2004-05. This time around is more difficult, he said, because his 4-year-old sons and 2-year-old daughter are old enough to realize their father will be gone.

And the 10-day leave just made it harder on everyone, he said.

“It just makes it harder for the family to say good-bye again. You’ve got 28 days where I’m gone, and then I’m back for 10 days. And they’re like, ‘Where did that come from?’

“It’s harder on them, and it makes it harder for me to say good-bye again.”

Randall Anderson took his family on a dinner cruise and a camping trip to make the most of his 10 days of pre-deployment leave.

That small slice of normalcy has ended for Anderson and others in the 81st Brigade Combat Team of the Washington National Guard. Now comes the difficult part. For Anderson, a 33-year-old specialist from Puyallup, that doesn’t necessarily mean entering a war zone.

“I’m not nervous when it comes to doing my job,” he said. “I’m just not looking forward to leaving my family behind.”

Anderson spent his last hours before deployment with his wife and three children – aged 4, 2 and 4 months – at a farewell ceremony at Game Farm Park in Auburn.

“It’s a little scary,” his wife, Jenny, said. “It’s a little stressful. But it’s kind of exciting at the same time. It’s cool that he’s going to serve his country. The kids consider him their hero.”

Hunter Ellis joined the Washington National Guard last September. The 19-year-old Olympia resident felt the call of service – his family has a history in the military – and graduated from basic training on July 31.

Still, he wasn’t certain if he would be able to join the 81st Brigade in time for its deployment – until Monday.

“Yesterday was the first day with my unit,” he said. “And I’m excited. I want to go and do my job. It’s what I was trained to do.”

Col. Ronald Kapral sat at the wooden picnic table and flipped through white index cards. The man who will lead the 81st Brigade into war was minutes away from addressing more than 700 soldiers at Auburn’s Game Farm Park, and he was trying at the last minute to nail his speech.

“I don’t even know why I write all this down,” he said. “I usually just get up there and ad-lib it.”

That might be more appropriate for the ceremony, which seems relaxed by military standards. Families and soldiers are milling about the park, taking cover from the sun under tents. Everyone seems to be snapping photos, and there are more than a few footballs sailing through the air. An inflatable playground in one corner is set up for kids to enjoy their time.

And, of course, there has been more than one joke about getting in that one last beer before deployment.

Terry Harder and Steven Cook took some time off the campaign trail to welcome visitors to today’s farewell ceremony in Auburn.

The Republicans are running for seats in the state House of Representatives out of the 29th District. But on Tuesday afternoon, they stood at the entrance to Game Farm Park and held American flags.

“We want to let them know that the public does care about them,” Harder said. “We want them to know that their families and the public support them. And that’s more important than campaigning today.”

And it didn't look like just a ploy to snag some votes. Both wore shirts with the logo of Operation Support Our Troops, and there was nary a campaign brochure to be seen.

They’re not the only politicians here today. Dino Rossi is working his way through the crowd, posing for photos and shaking hands of the soldiers and their families who are preparing to deploy.

And we’ve heard that Gov. Chris Gregoire and U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert are also expected to be in attendance.

Tuesday is the big send-off party -- or shall we say, parties -- for some 2,500 Washington National Guardsmen who are headed to Wisconsin for a month or so. Then it's off to Kuwait and finally Iraq as fully trained members of the 81st Brigade Combat Team.

The biggest farewell will be in honor of the hundreds of citizen-soldiers who normally report to the Kent Armory. We expect the largest contingent of dignitaries there. It's set for 2 p.m. at Game Farm Park in Auburn, 3030 R St. SE.

Hard to shut the public out of a public park, so you can swing by, if you'd like.

Sgt. David Largent of the brigade's public affairs office told me this morning that event planners "are focused primarily on soldiers and their families, but we're not telling people they can't come."

Likewise the send-off for the soldiers based at the Puyallup Armory, who will say their farewells at 4 p.m. at downtown's Pioneer Park.

And the men and women who train in Olympia will have their event right there at the Armory, 711 State Ave. NE., at 3 p.m.

From Bellingham to Spokane, each of the state's armories is holding individual ceremonies, unlke 2004 when the brigade had one big gala at the Tacoma Dome.

The News Tribune will staff the Auburn event with words and pictures, and we'll have feeds from our sister papers in Puyallup, Olympia and Bellingham.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the soldiers and loved ones.

Thanks to all the nice people from the 81st Brigade Combat Team who offered to share their lives with us over this 10 days that they have together before they ship out for Fort McCoy. After that they go to Iraq.

So far we've featured Maj. Todd and Debbie Bonham of Tacoma, who are enjoying a Caribbean cruise before he heads back for his second Iraq tour with the 81st. He was a Marine for five years and an active-duty artillery officer in the Army before joining the Washington National Guard right after Sept. 11. He is an Edward Jones stock broker in civilian life; Debbie is a teacher in the Fife School District.

Part 2: We told you about the Moores of Tacoma – Staff Sgt. Mason Moore and his wife, Lauren – who wanted to be sure to have their two children dedicated into the Puyallup Foursquare church before he goes to Iraq.

Part 3: Newlyweds Kyle Everhart and Darah Harris-Everhart tied the knot Sunday in a backyard ceremony at her mother's place in Parkland. Kyle, a specialist, is a Tacoma Community College student and Darah works at the Urban League in Seattle. They'll be going through their first overseas deployment in Kyle's four years in the National Guard.

Part 4: Kurt and Yvonne Shevalier of Lacey are prepping their kids – 17, 13 and 11 – for Kurt's second deployment of the war. Kurt also plays a big part in the lives of his students at Northeast Tacoma Elementary School, where he's a gym teacher.

Part 5: Meet Kyle Weiss, a mortgage banker from Ferndale who will soon be driving an armored Humvee on convoy security duty in Iraq. From our sister paper, the Bellingham Herald.

Part 6: It's Christmas in August for Sgt. David Isaac and his wife Suzanne and their kids – Caroline, 8, and twins Stover and Jackson, nearly 4.

Part 7: Thai shrimp and Italian food at home are just fine for Capt. Blake Melancon and his wife Leanne, who are "travelled out" in advance of his overseas deployment. From our sister paper, The Olympian.

Part 8: Heath Sherrer is a big-time Seahawks fan, and he and some fellow soldiers got the VIP treatment for the preseason OT win over the Chicago Bears.

Part 9: Lt. Aaron Thompson, his twin brother and the rest of their large clan grab a chance for a family portrait in a Gig Harbor park.

Flight medics from the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron this week begin a sequence of three, six-month deployments to Germany and Iraq, the Air Force Reserve wing at McChord announced Monday.

The wing said 54 flight nurses, doctors and support personnel will be deployed at some point over the next year – about a third of the squadron. They'll go in one of three six-month shifts, the first of which leaves this week, the wing said.

Some will be making their fifth deployment since the military operations that began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Staff Sgt. Matt Bumpus, who served on the 3rd Brigade's first Iraq tour with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, passed away Sunday after a two-year battle with acute myleogenous leukemia. He was 31, and leaves behind a wife and two young sons in Roseville, Calif.

Bumpus believed his cancer was likely the result of chemical or radiation exposures while he served in Iraq. The Veterans Administration denied his claim.

Memorial donations can be sent to Lisa Bumpus at 1000 Sunrise Ave., Suite 9B, Box 411, Roseville, CA 95661.

Sharon Cohen of The Associated Press has done a terrific job getting inside and telling the personal stories of the Minnesota National Guard soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 34th Infantry Division.

The brigade spent 22 months on active duty – 16 of them in Iraq, longer than any other unit.

We're running her seven-part series, The Long Haul, although with all the items competing for your attention on our home page you might have missed it.

They're having a groundbreaking ceremony at 2 p.m. today on a new 4,500-square-foot club house at the American Lake Veterans Golf Course on the grounds at the veterans hospital.

About 10 Washington National Guardsmen from the 176th Engineer Company over the next month will build the foundation, with the rest of the work to follow over the next year via donated design, materials and labor, according to a guard press release.

The Seattle Indymedia Center has its own wrap up of last week's events at the Port of Tacoma and outside Fort Lewis, from the protesters' perspective.

They'll get a new team at the top Friday at the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis. Brigade commander Col. Jon Lehr will give way to Col. John G. Norris, who led the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment in the old 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Alaska during its 2005-06 deployment to Iraq.

Norris wrote the occasional piece for the alternative weekly in his hometown of Louisville – not something you see every day. He is a Desert Shield/Desert Storm veteran with the 101st Airborne Division, and commanded B Company of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment Tomahawks at Fort Lewis in 1994-96.

The brigade's top noncommissioned officer, Command Sgt. Maj. John Wayne Troxell, will be succeeded by Command Sgt. Maj. Jeffrey Huggins, who was with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment during its hard fight last year in Baqoubah. Huggins earlier spent 12 years in the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment with deployments to Panama, Somalia and Haiti.

Checking to see what Lehr and Troxell do next.

UPDATE: Lehr's next job is commander of the operations group at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La. (Lehr moved up to Fort Lewis from Polk with the old 2nd Cavalry Regiment before it switched to Strykers and got its new name.)

Troxell is moving on to become the command sergeant major at the U.S. Army Armor Center at Fort Knox, Ky.

RecruitMilitary, the U.S. Department of Labor and the American Legion are sponsoring a career fair 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 28 at the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center. Click here for the news release and here for the flier.

Notes and announcements about South Puget Sound residents serving in the U.S. military. Send your news to me at mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com

Maj. Donald Crider

Plucked last fall from teaching AP Physics at Stadium High School, Maj. Donald Crider of Tacoma these days is flying medevac missions in Iraq with the 126th Aviation Regiment. He is based in Amarah, in Maysan province, flying UH-60 Black Hawks in support of the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.

“We are here for the soldiers (and) to make sure we can respond to any kind of medical help they would need,” Crider said in an Army press release. He added that his transition from the classroom to the cockpit only intensified his motivation to help the soldiers here.

“It’s moving to know you are the difference between someone living and dying.” (Aug. 6, 2008)

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Alex D. Landress recently completed naval nuclear power training at Ballston Spa, N.Y., to qualify to become a Naval nuclear operator. Landress, son of Lydia Quinby of Bonney Lake, joined the Navy after graduating from Sumner High School in 2006. (July 21, 2008)

Marine Corps Pvt. Travis J. Richard, a 2005 graduate of Sumner High School, recently completed the small-arms repair course at the U.S. Army Proving Ground at Aberdeen, Md. Richard joined the Marine Corps in September 2007. (June 30, 2008)

White

Air Force Lt. Caroline White, daughter of Drs. Lawrence and Donna White of Lakewood, won her age division in her first Ironman triathlon competition Sunday in Coeur d'Alene. She's a 2007 Air Force Academy graduate and a 2003 graduate of Bellarmine Prep. Next she's onto the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October. White is working on her master's degree at the University of Maryland and then will go to pilot training at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas.

An Ironman race consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. (June 24, 2008)

I Corps and Fort Lewis NCO of the Year is Sgt. Daniel P. Dean from the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, and Soldier of the Year is Spc. Justin R. Brown of the 308th Brigade Support Battalion. Click here for Northwest Guardian coverage of the competition.

Two Tacoma-area soldiers -- Spc. Jeremy J. Bucholtz of Lakewood and Spc. Wayne J. Faga of Tacoma -- are back at Fort Hood, Texas, after a 15-month deployment in Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Division. Bucholtz is with the 2nd Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment and Faga is with the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, according to an Army press release.

Bucholtz, a 1994 Lakes High School graduate, is the son of Laurel Smith and grandson of Lawrence Bell of Lakewood. Faga graduated from Lincoln High in 1996 and is the son of Foai and Faafoi Faga of Tacoma's East Side. (May 21, 2008)

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Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire will head over to the Yakima Training Center on Wednesday to talk to the 81st Brigade Combat Team.

The Washington National Guardsmen are completing a month of training in Yakima. They'll be coming home late this week for 10 days off before they turn around and head to Fort McCoy, Wis., for more training and then the big trip over to the Middle East sometime in October.

The Guard has tentatively scheduled farewell ceremonies at armories all across the state, most to be held Aug. 19. More details as they're firmed up. The biggest, though, will be at the Kent Armory, which is home to the largest concentration of 81st Brigade soldiers in the state.

Fort Lewis officials say they've completed the movement of all of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division's vehicles and cargo containers from the Port of Tacoma back to the post.

The operation occurred without the significant public disturbances that marked the return of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division's equipment last November at the Port of Tacoma Olympia, and the departure of 4th Brigade's trucks through the Port of Tacoma in March 2007.

Fort Lewis spokesman Joseph Piek said Tuesday that 260 Strykers, more than 400 other vehicles and about 700 cargo containers "were successfully and safely moved to the installation using both military and civilian transport."

Detective Tom Williams, a Tacoma police spokesman, said Tacoma officers arrested three persons near the port during the six nights of protests. Lakewood police arrested another five near freeway overpasses leading to Fort Lewis, he said.

UPDATE: Lakewood police spokeswoman Heidi Hoffman said her department's officers made nine arrests, all on the freeway ramps and overpasses. There were three on Friday, three early Saturday and three Sunday night.

That makes a total of 12.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Comparing notes with Lights & Sirens we come up with 14.

The Port Militarization Resistance version is here. The protesters said there were 15 arrests; we could not immediately account for the difference.

Earlier posts from Lights & Sirens are here and here.

Technically the U.S. Army Reserve turned 100 on April 23rd but it has been celebrating its centennial with events all around the country. The Puget Sound-area version comes this Saturday at the Ballard Locks in Seattle.

A combined performance begins at noon by the 70th Army Band and the 104th Division Band. They'll do a re-enlistment ceremony, present Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve awards to several employers, and the 70th Regional Readiness Command boss, Maj. Gen. Chris Ingram, will cut the birthday cake with his sword.

There will also be static displays of military vehicles and equipment, a rock climbing wall and loads of other stuff for the kids. The event runs through 5 p.m.

The convoy of five Humvees rolled down a dirt road when a voice boomed across the radio.

“Indirect fire! Indirect fire! Roll through! Roll through!”

Spc. Shane Sotocole mashed the accelerator. The vehicle jerked forward. Dust from the convoy darkened the bright sky.

The same voice on the radio had a different message seconds later.

“Gas!”

Sotocole hit the brakes as the Humvee skidded to a stop on the side of the road. He and two passengers, Sgt. Terrell Fox and Sgt. Terry Meyers, unzipped green pouches attached to their belt. They slipped black gasmasks over their face.

A minute later, the same voice announced an all-clear. The three soldiers, members of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team, removed the masks. Meyers, sitting in the passenger seat, turned to his colleagues and nodded.

“This is the kind of stuff that’s gonna save us over there,” he said.

Over there. Iraq.

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Spc. Antonio Shepard returned from a deployment with the Virginia National Guard two months ago, spending his year in the Middle East as a gunner on convoys running supplies from Kuwait into Iraq.

Time for a long, relaxing break, right? Nope. Shepard is heading back.

The 23-year-old Atlanta native transferred last month to the Washington National Guard and joined the 1st Brigade, 161st Infantry Regiment.

“I just want to knock another deployment out before I finish school,” he said. “I won’t be going any more after this, so I can focus on classes instead of thinking about deploying again.”

Shepard is one of about 35 “interstate transfer” soldiers, brigade commander Col. Ronald Kapral said. Many of these Guardsmen transferred because they want to deploy, but their Guard unit might not be scheduled to for year

“We’ve had people drive here from Georgia and Tennessee just to fight with the 81st,” Kapral said.

Spc. Raymond Hearne had served with the Washington National Guard before accepting a job offer and moving to Coos Bay, Ore., last year. He kept in contact with his colleagues and transferred when he heard his old unit was deploying.

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Choose your comparison. Chances are they’ve heard it.

Refugee camp? Can of sardines?

“Yep. Yep,” said Cpl. Brandon Truman of Tacoma. “We’ve made them all.”

Truman, a member of the 81st Brigade’s 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry Division is one of about 300 soldiers sleeping in a massive tent during exercises at Yakima Training Center.

Another tent on the grounds is the temporary home of almost 1,000 Guardsmen.

The tents are stuffed with row after row of cots, many just inches from each other. Duffel bags, shoes, backpacks and other personal objects cover the floor. Soldiers are constantly chatting to each other, talking on cell phones, napping or reading.

Sounds bad? Many Guardsmen seem to prefer tent living – this is the desert, and the tents have something the barracks don’t: air conditioning.

“It’s really nice in until morning – then it can get too cold,” Cadet Jay Ladines of Cheney said. “But I’d rather be in here than the barracks.”

Other factors remind soldiers that this ain’t the Ritz. Truman said it one person can catch an illness and spread it to everyone else. It can remain noisy until pretty late. And the bathrooms are outside, several hundred feet away.

The run-up to the 81st Brigade Combat Team’s deployment four years ago was hectic.

The Pentagon gave the Washington National Guard unit about a month to begin full-time training to head to Iraq, and about third of its soldiers was in risk of missing the deployment because of poor health.

It was a unit in need of dental work: About 1,200 soldiers were classified as Class 3 or 4, meaning they couldn’t deploy until their mouths improved. Some required months of treatment.

Training schedules were disrupted because many of those soldiers – many of whom didn’t have insurance – hurried to get their teeth fixed before the 81st left for Iraq.

More time and better coverage have made a huge difference ahead of this month’s deployment, brigade officials said. “We’re way ahead of where we were because we’ve had plenty of time to get Sgt. Joe’s teeth looked at and get them fixed,” Maj. Kurt Shevalier, the brigade’s medical operations officer, said Saturday. “Last time, it was a race against the clock.”

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Russ and I are back at Yakima again today. We’re with the headquarters battery, 2nd Battalion, 146th Field Artillery based in Olympia. We’re putting together a piece about training for convoy security missions – but it won’t run until Monday – and will be bringing other stories throughout the day.

Sgt. Patrick Daniels doesn’t routinely pull rank on Pfc. Justin Daniels.

He doesn’t have to.

Patrick is Justin’s father.

The two are serving and will deploy to Iraq together in B Troop, a unit of the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment. Patrick joined the Washington National Guard in 2003, and his son followed two years later.

“It’s pretty cool because I’ve seen a lot of change in him so far,” said Patrick, a 43-year-old Boeing inspector from Arlington.

Justin, a 21-year-old structural mechanic from Boeing who lives in Everett, said the unusual arrangement isn’t always easy – like when Justin calls his father “Dad.”

“Yeah, he does that a lot,” Patrick said, smiling. “We’ve already got out butts chewed out a few times for that.”

“Well,” Justin replied, “I can’t exactly call you Sgt. Dad, either.”

YAKIMA – The tape in the sand represented the walls. Four soldiers lined up outside, silently signaled they were ready and kicked down a nonexistent door.

The men rushed in, rifles panning the imaginary room. They secured the location as seasoned veterans looked on and critiqued their actions.

It’s called a glass-house drill, and soldiers of the National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team repeated it dozens of times Friday at the Yakima Training Center.

The soldiers are trained to be anything from tank mechanics to police officers. But other skills are needed in Iraq, so the members of 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry Regiment based in Kent, were practicing urban warfare skills less than three weeks before their mobilization begins.

The 3,400-soldier unit, which is expected to arrive in Kuwait in late October and will enter Iraq soon after, will mainly be tasked with protecting convoys, defending bases and working with reconstruction teams but can be called to engage in close-quarter combat.

When the 81st arrives in Iraq, it will function as a heavy brigade in name only.

“We have tanks, Bradleys, Paladins; we are a conventional force if the United States went to war against a conventional enemy,” said the brigade commander, Col. Ronald Kapral. “But because we aren’t going against a conventional enemy and we’re doing a counterinsurgency mission, we had to refocus our training.”

=> Read more!

The State Secretary of State’s office is at Yakima during drills to encourage service members to either register or to change their status to active military on their registration forms.

Nick Handy, the state’s elections director, said that 90 percent of the 2,400 soldiers set to deploy with the 81st Brigade are already registered or will register before drills are finished. Handy didn’t have a firm number Friday morning on the amount of new registrations.

About 30 people – including state workers, county auditors’ offices and volunteers – have been helping guide soldiers through the registration process. One advantage of changing voter status to military, Handy said, is that it allows the state to send a mail-in ballot sooner.

With more training looming next month in Wisconsin and then the deployment to Iraq, that makes that extra week even more crucial, he said.

“We want to make sure that the 81st Brigade members are able to exercise one of our country’s most sacred rights,” Secretary of State Sam Reed said in a release. “As they go to Iraq to help give Iraqis the freedom to vote, we need to make sure our soldiers have the opportunity to vote in our elections.”

That's basically the question I put to the spokesman for the Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command at Scott Air Force Base, where they make the decisions about how to move Army gear to and from the United States from Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else.

The short answer: Not really.

Actually, what I asked was: In light of the increased security issues at recent operations at the ports of Tacoma and Olympia, did the SDDC consider sending this latest shipment home via some other port – Beaumont, Texas, or Port Hueneme, Calif., for example? And how much more would it cost to move all that stuff – 900+ vehicles and 300+ cargo containers -- to Fort Lewis by rail?

Via e-mail, response from spokesman Ken Holder:

"First and foremost, we do what's best for the Warfighter to get their equipment to the point of need quickly and safely. We conduct analysis of the following criteria when we're selecting an off-load port -- port congestion on the day the ship is scheduled to discharge; geographic location of the port as it relates to the Warfighter; intermodal solutions (truck and rail); and port operating capability -- meaning the seaport infrastructure is able to upload or discharge the Warfighter's equipment. Cost is always a concern, but not the deciding factor. We continually strive to be good stewards of the taxpayers' dollars, however operational requirements are sometimes the priority.

... While cost is always a concern, it is not the deciding factor when we're selecting where a ship would offload cargo -- we look at port congestion, port operating capability, intermodal solutions, geographic location of the port in relation to the Warfighter and what's best for the Warfighter.

The sooner the Warfighters have their equipment, the sooner they can get about the task of getting it ready for any future contingency."

Meantime, see Lights & Sirens for coverage of what's going on down at the Port of Tacoma.

About 50 soldiers in headquarters troop of the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry filled a large white tent early this morning. They sat at long tables and took notes while a civilian instructor presented a slideshow on a projection screen.

The training might not be as sexy as kicking in doors or firing M-4s at the range, but the Guardsmen were learning skills that will be crucial during convoy security missions.

“We’re teaching CREW training right now,” said Chief Warrant Officer Gordon Jay, a Shelton resident and electronic warfare officer. “Basically, we’re teaching guys how to jam radio-controlled IEDs.”

Here’s a milspeak-to-English translation: IED is an improvised explosive device, more commonly known as a roadside bomb. An IED detonated by radio frequency is known as an RCID. And CREW training stands for Counter RCID Electronic Warfare.

The soldiers were learning how to use the tools that interfere with the electronic signals that set off the bombs. It’s a rapidly changing field, Jay explained, because as the different tools to detonate the bombs change become more sophisticated – cell phones and passive-infrared sensors have largely replaced RC car remotes and garage-door openers – the jamming technology has evolved.

“Once (the military) got a system on the ground and it countered a threat, a new threat would arise and that system couldn’t counter that threat,” he said. “So they had to look at a new system. It made a steep learning curve the first few years.”

The jammers the Guardsmen are learning to use prevent detonation because they overwhelm multiple radio frequencies at once. But because the detonators come from an array of technologies, the range of frequencies to jam is wide.

Employees from Virginia-based defense contractor General Dynamics taught the course to the Guardsmen. Instructor Randy Caswell, a Lewis County native and retired electronics maintenance technician with the Army, said several agencies from various countries are now working together to share information about developments in IED technology, and that swapping has helped the military make strides in preventing attacks.

But roadside bombs still remain the largest security threat on convoys, Jay said.

“(The insurgents) aren’t dummies,” he said. “A lot of people want to label them as dummies. The guys actually laying them in the road might not be the smartest guys in the world, but the guys designing them are insidiously clever.”

Photographer Russ Carmack and I are about to head to the Yakima Training Center to start our three-day visit with the 81st Brigade Combat Team. Things are always subject to change, but it sounds like we’ll be spending our first day with the 1st Squadron, 303rd Cavalry based in Kent.

Check back for updates throughout the day, pending scheduling.