SKOWHEGAN – Amid the sheep barns and white fences of the Skowhegan Fairgrounds, Army National Guard soldiers have set up their temporary home.

Rows of camouflage-patterned tents and net-covered trucks contrast with the children’s barn, concession booths and the new grandstand.

The National Guard has taken over the fairgrounds as its base camp for the Guard’s two-week annual training program. This year, the 133rd Engineer Battalion of Gardiner is doing its training – preparing a recreation area on a 15-acre plot of land in Madison – about 10 miles from the fairgrounds.

According to the National Guard, the program, known as Civil Military Innovative Readiness Training, is a partnership between a community and the military that helps a town with a project and provides the Guard with a place to train.

“This mission gives us a chance to work on our military skills and give back to a community,” Army National Guard Capt. William Appel said Friday. “It is the culmination of all our training throughout the year in one 15-day-straight period.”

In a war scenario, the group would be responsible for building roads and airfields. The skills they would use in war are the same ones they are practicing by building seven sports fields for the town, he said.

“We’re clearing 15 acres of trees and stumps and doing grading work so they can plant grass and turn [the land] into sport fields,” Appel said. “A lot of us are not engineers by trade, so that’s why this two-week period is so important.”

On Friday, about 20 area employers got a firsthand look at what their employees who also are Guard members accomplish during their time away from work. The business and professional people were flown over the Madison work site by a Black Hawk helicopter.

The group of about 300 soldiers started work Saturday, June 9, and the two-week training period will end Thursday, June 21, if the weather holds up, Appel said.

The battalion had to deal with rain during the first week of operation and now is working in temperatures in the high 90s.

“We’re working in Heat Category 5, which means restricted work duty, but there have been no heat casualties as of yet,” Appel said. “We always stress safety first, so now we’ll work longer hours into the evening if necessary [when it’s cooler].”

The workdays start at daybreak and end after dark, which helps get the soldiers accustomed to working at night with headlights from machinery, Appel said.

Paul Fortin, president of the Madison Area Recreational Committee, said the recreation area project was started in 1996 and was scheduled to take 10 years to complete, but the National Guard has moved the timetable up five years and saved them money in the process. The project is estimated to cost $1 million.

“We estimate [the town is saving] a half-million dollars,” Fortin said this week. “This would not be possible if it were not for the Army National Guard. They are doing a tremendous job.”

The area has been designed to fit the needs of people of all ages in the community. The project will have six baseball fields, a football field, an all-purpose field that can be used for any type activity, a picnic area-playground combination and two parking lots. It also will include a demonstration forest and a 11/2-mile walking trail.

It’s not just for area youth as the walking trail targets senior citizens, Fortin said.

“It is very important to them to have a place to walk,” he said. “It’s designed so people can get out for an evening and see activities while they’re walking and there is no traffic in any of these areas.”

Safety is a key benefit of the new area, which is set back from any major roads, Fortin said.

“The fields we had in the past were near highways and major roads and continually posed safety issues,” the committee president said. “This facility is going to provide safe recreation for the community for generations.”

On Friday afternoon, three groups of employers boarded a bus and were taken to Norridgewock Airfield, where they were given earplugs and safety instructions before climbing into the helicopter. Each group was flown over the fairgrounds and then taken to Madison over the work area, where the employers could see bulldozers and soldiers clearing and leveling the new fields. A number of the passengers took pictures of the site.

William Shuttleworth, superintendent of SAD 39 in Buckfield and a former Air Force sergeant, has five people involved in the training mission.

“I like the idea of peacekeeping forces keeping our communities strong,” he said, back on the ground after the afternoon flight. “The Guard is an incredible resource to our state and nation -it’s essential that we have strong guard units that are ready for duty if we need them.”

Depending on how much progress the National Guard makes by the end of its mission, Madison residents may not have to wait too long to enjoy the recreation area.

“We hope we will be playing on the fields in summer 2002,” Fortin said.

When the National Guard leaves, the project still will need finishing touches.

“They are going to have all the rough grading done,” Fortin said. “But we are going to have to do the fine grading, seed the fields and put up the fences.”

And that takes money.

Fortin said people in the community already have donated about half the money needed to complete the project, but the town continues to need the community’s help. Donation committee members Laura Russell and Chris LeBlanc still are looking for funds.

Anyone interested in donating to the project can call the Madison town office at 696-3971 and ask for the town manager.