Guard units prepare for possibility of call-up

BANGOR – Army and Air National Guard units remained on heightened alert Friday in the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist jetliner crashes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Maine military reserve units had not been called to active duty as of Friday afternoon though it appeared preparations were being made for that possibility.

Activity intensified at the Army National Guard base off Maine Avenue. While each vehicle approaching the Army National Guard gate was thoroughly searched, part-time pilots and helicopter crew members were briefed in a nearby building for flight training exercises.

The bustling Army National Guard base is located on the east border of Bangor International Airport. The Air National Guard facility sits on the airport’s western perimeter.

If there is any call-up of Maine reserve units, it most likely will not happen before later in the day Saturday, according to Col. Don Reynolds, Air National Guard base commander in Bangor. The latest word is that of the 50,000 military units called up nationally, 14,500 will come from reserve units. About 13,000 of them will be Air National Guard reservists but there is no way to tell now if any will come from Maine, according to Reynolds.

Information was not immediately available on how many Army National Guard reservists may be called up.

While activity slowed for the weekend at the Air National Guard base Friday, it picked up at the Army National Guard base.

By 2:30 p.m. four helicopter training flights had taken off, three crews in powerful, $7 million Black Hawk helicopters and one four-member crew in a smaller $2 million Huey helicopter. About six training missions were scheduled for daylight hours and more were planned Friday night when helicopter crews would use night goggles that enable them to see objects despite darkness.

Chief Warrant Officer 5 Stephen Buzzell of Charleston was in charge of Friday’s helicopter activity at the Army National Guard base. He wanted the message to get out that, while residents of Bangor and surrounding communities will hear and see a lot of helicopters in the sky this weekend, the air activity is related to scheduled flight training exercises and not, as far as he knows, to any military call-up.

Since Tuesday, Army National Guard helicopters have been flying two to three missions a day scouting for fires for the grounded Maine Forest Service. That activity stopped Friday as the forest service again was allowed in the air at 12:30 p.m.

This weekend, “we’ll have helicopters in the air but it’s FTP – flight training personnel day – not because of being called up,” Buzzell said Friday.

Approximately 125 members of the Army National Guard’s 112th Medevac Unit and about 60 members belonging to the Army Guard’s 137th Huey “Charlie” Company will take part in the training.

On Friday, Buzzell spoke with eight pilots and crew members shortly before they embarked on daylight training missions.

They talked of the weather and a few safety issues. Buzzell reminded the part-timers, also called “M-day” guys, that Bangor probably has one of the better supplies of fuel, given that it’s the end of the fiscal year. One pilot remarked that crews had to keep their focus despite the horrific events in New York and Washington.

Buzzell, 55, also is a pilot. He joined the Army in 1966 and saw active duty in Vietnam and in the Desert Storm campaign. A family man, Buzzell said the tragic events earlier this week had affected the Army Guard base and its personnel.

“We’re prepared,” said Buzzell when asked how he and other Army National Guard members felt about the possibility of a call-up.