No National Guard or Reserve units in Maine were called to active duty during the weekend to fill in for U.S. troops being deployed to the Middle East, although that is a call that could still come.
President Bush on Friday decided to call up certain members of the military reserves to fill the void left by the troops guarding the borders of Saudi Arabia from a possible Iraqi attack. Mostly, the Pentagon will activate doctors, cargo handlers and other specialists, press reports have said.
So far, spokesmen said, neither Maine Air National Guard nor Army National Guard units have been called to duty, although the Bangor-area reserves include both medical and air-refueling personnel.
A Navy spokeswoman in Washington said Saturday that no Navy reserves currently are being called up anywhere in the country, although the executive order that Bush is expected to sign reportedly includes Navy forces.
Most reserve and Guard officials queried about the call-up said they had heard little about Pentagon plans.
A Naval Reserve public affairs officer in Massachusetts said Saturday that he could “neither confirm nor deny” any information on Maine Naval Reserves, and suggested that a reporter read USA Today and the Boston Globe.
“I get my current information off NBC news,” he said.
About 125 naval reservists are based in the Bangor area, and most Maine naval hospital personnel are based in Augusta, a local spokesman said.
Although 450 members of the Maine Air Guard have volunteered for active duty, Capt. Mark Tuck reported that Air Guard troops currently are not involved in the call-up, and that the 101st Air Refueling Wing remained busy handling the heavy traffic of tankers that pass through the Bangor base.
“It’s full speed ahead and business as ususal,” Tuck said of the more than 1,000 Guardsmen in the area.
Capt. Peter Rogers, Maine National Guard public affairs officer, said that none of Maine’s more-than 3,000 Army National Guardsmen currently are involved in the activation. “I haven’t heard anything of the Army being volunteered,” Rogers said.
Rogers also said he was unsure whether any medical personnel from the 112th Medical Co. in Bangor would be involved.
There was no answer at an Army Reserve medical unit, a section of the 1125th U.S. Army Hospital, in Bangor during the weekend.
If Maine reservists are activated, it would be the first call-up for the Maine Air National Guard since 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson activated 35,000 reserves nationwide following the Tet offensive in Vietnam. At that time, the 101st Air Refueling Wing was known as the 101st Fighter-Interceptor Wing.
The Maine Army Guard was last mobilized during World War II.
Reserves provide more than two-thirds of the national wartime medical personnel support, three-quarters of medical evacuation crews and nearly all of the Navy’s search and rescue operations.
Although the president can activate up to 200,000 of the nation’s estimated 1.2 million reservists, Pentagon sources have been quoted as saying the initial number probably will not exceed 3,000.
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