LEWISTON – Three companies of the 133rd Engineer Battalion retired their colors Saturday as part of a restructuring of the largest unit of the Maine Army National Guard.

The battalion will be consolidating its Alpha, Bravo and Charlie companies into two independent units – the 262nd Engineer Company, made up of troops who construct buildings, and the 136th Engineer Company, whose members build roads and runways.

The change is designed to give the Army greater flexibility in deploying the Guard units in smaller numbers to handle more specific missions.

In ceremonies held at armories in Belfast, Westbrook and Lewiston, the Guard deactivated Alpha, Bravo and Charlie companies, a change that had been in the planning stage for more than a year.

“There are going to be some adjustments,” Lt. Col. Dwaine Drummond said. “People will be drilling at a different location. In some cases people will be doing different jobs. We know there will be a year or two before we really have a full appreciation for where we’re going.”

Drummond said he would have liked to see the current companies stay together.

“We like the idea of deploying with people we know,” he said. “From a personal standpoint I would much rather see the battalion deploy the way we did in 2003 to Iraq and knowing the people you have – as opposed to headquarters deploying with other elements from other states, just from a cohesiveness standpoint.”

The Guard has reorganized other units to ease the deployment process by keeping soldiers with similar training together. Last October, the 112th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) in Bangor was decommissioned and transformed into two new companies.

The new engineer companies will take shape after a formal ceremony next month.

The Guard said no jobs will be lost as a result of the reorganization, although some troops will be required to shift to different armories for their weekend drills.

The lineage of the 133rd Engineer Battalion goes back to the Civil War, when it was part of the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment that fought at Gettysburg under Gen. Joshua Chamberlain. The unit fought in both world wars under the 103rd Infantry Regiment and was converted to the 133rd Engineer Battalion in 1967. The unit saw duty in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.