Soldiers of the 133rd Engineering Company, a Wyoming Army National Guard unit, salute the American flag earlier this summer while stationed at Isa Air Base in Bahrain, near the Persian Gulf. The unit, which includes 162 soldiers, left Wyoming in April for Camp Shelby in Mississippi. The 133rd arrived May 19 at Isa Air Base for a mission to provide base security. Courtesy photo
The Fourth of July in Laramie was marked with traditional trappings — barbecues, ballgames and the annual Freedom Has A Birthday gathering at Washington Park.
For more than 160 Wyoming soldiers currently serving half a world from home, the cost of that stateside birthday celebration was paid with service in body armor in triple-digit desert heat.
The 133rd Engineering Company, a Wyoming Army National Guard Unit based in Laramie, arrived May 19 at Isa Air Base in Bahrain near the Persian Gulf.
The unit, which includes 162 soldiers, left Wyoming in April for Camp Shelby in Mississippi, where it underwent weeks of pre-mobilization combat and defense training, before shipping overseas.
Hundreds attended an April deployment ceremony at the University of Wyoming’s Arena-Auditorium to recognize and honor the unit before leaving Laramie.
The 133rd is tasked with protecting Air Base assets and personnel as its security forces element. The base houses Marine Corps., Navy, Air Force and Army units.
Lt. Chris Wilson, 31, of Laramie, said the mission has been without violence thus far, though unit personnel are constantly on alert and take seriously their responsibility of guarding a “small piece of the U.S.” in Bahrain.
“We’ve been lucky since we’ve been here, it’s been fairly quiet,” Wilson said Thursday morning by phone from the Air Base. “… It’s not like Afghanistan or Iraq.”
Wilson, who has been in the National Guard for 12 years, said the unit’s security duties include screening individuals and checking vehicles.
“Soldiers are enjoying the opportunity to do a mission that matters to the security in the region, and (they) notice the impact that Bahrain has on the region,” he wrote in an email earlier in the week.
Morale, Wilson said, is good thus far.
Soldiers are “afforded many opportunities to experience morale welfare trips, concerts and field trips during the course of the week,” he wrote.
While the unit has been stationed at the Air Base, there have been visits from Boulder, Colo. band, 3OH!3, American Idol and country singer Casey James, actor Kal Penn, of “Harold Kumar” fame, and “Grey’s Anatomy” actress Kate Walsh.
Soldiers have the opportunity to play golf on a small, 9-hole course, are able to travel on occasion to Bahraini restaurants and the Grand Mosque in the city of Manama, and have access to the Internet, gym facilities and a movie theater showing current films from the U.S.
“Soldiers have started to get into a pretty good rhythm now that we’ve been here for about 45 days,” Wilson wrote.
“We’ve acclimated nicely to the area.”
Although overseas, soldiers take note of the Fourth, Sgt. Anthony Sykes said.
“I think it’s on everybody’s mind, our families back home, probably barbecuing and having a beer,” the 25-year-old said. “… Here we are overseas, (serving) for those reasons.”
Sykes, also a Laramie resident, is a UW senior-to-be studying criminal justice. Bahrain is his first overseas deployment in six years with the National Guard.
He said the holiday away from home “does make you a little homesick,” but he tries to keep it in perspective for him and his soldiers.
“Like I tell them, ‘You’ve got to keep your head up, it’s only a temporary situation, and we’ll get to (be home) for the Fourth next year,’” he said.
Wilson said the 133rd is tentatively slated to return home in February or March 2014.
Until then, Sykes said, the unit’s mission is to be ready and alert.
“You always have to keep your head on a swivel,” he said. “Things happen when they’re most unexpected.
“Always be ready. You never know what could happen.”
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