BISMARCK (AP) -- A North Dakota National Guard military police unit reactivated after a nine-year absence is preparing for up to a year on duty at a site not yet known.
Guard officials said Monday that the 191st Military Police Company, with about 170 members, has been alerted for possible mobilization sometime next year. The unit is based in Fargo, with detachments in Bismarck and Mayville.
The 191st was deployed for six months to Saudi Arabia in 1990, in support of the first Gulf War. It was deactivated in 1997, and reactivated last year.
The unit specializes in providing security during combat, a mission for which soldiers were training last weekend at Camp Grafton, near Devils Lake, when they found out about the possible mobilization. Mark Geiss of Bismarck, the unit's senior enlisted officer, said the notice was expected.
"The soldiers found out on Friday afternoon," Geiss said. "We're still so brand new, but we figured it would happen sooner or later."
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Besides security, the 191st can conduct investigations and can be used as light infantry.
The unit's commanding officer, Capt. Andrew Nathan, already has had two assignments in the Middle East with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. He said that although the 191st was called up to support the war on terror, the unit could be assigned domestically or "back-fill" a unit in Germany that would be called to the Middle East.
"The way I put it to the soldiers is 'We're in the batter's box and it's the second out,'" Nathan said. "'The batter ahead of us determines whether we get into the game or not.'"
1st Lt. Dan Murphy, a Guard spokesman, said the military police unit likely would be the first unit to fall under the Army's new 12-month deployment policy. That means that if it gets called up to active duty, the unit's time spent training would count toward its 12 months of required service. In the past, soldiers had to spend a year wherever their unit was deployed, a term known as "boots on ground."
"With the new call-up system, it alerts units up to a year out," Murphy said. "That gives them more time for training at home, and lets (soldiers) get their affairs in order."
The 191st likely would be sent for training in Fort Riley, Kan., before its possible deployment.
"The 191st Military Police Company performed admirably in a key role during the first Gulf War," Maj. Gen. Dave Sprynczynatyk, the state Guard commander, said in a statement. "This unit will again contribute significantly in the Global War on Terrorism, something that I am extremely proud of and that all North Dakotans can be proud of."
In Desert Storm, the military police unit, then based in Mandan, was praised for its work in securing Iraqi enemy prisoners.
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Five other Guard units involving a total of 328 soldiers currently serve in Iraq or Afghanistan or are ready to be deployed there, Guard officials said.
