Shipping out: Gillette’s Alpha Battery deploys to Middle East next week | Local News
In 2022, the soldiers in Alpha Battery of the 2nd Battalion 300th Field Artillery Regiment learned that they would be deployed to the Middle East in two years.
Next week, that day will finally come.
“We’ve known about this for a long time, it feels like it’s taken forever to get here,” said Staff Sgt. Morgan Keith.
The 2-300 Field Artillery Regiment, including the Gillette-based Alpha Battery, is being deployed to the Middle East. It’s the first time Alpha Battery has been deployed since 2019.
In total, hundreds of soldiers from Wyoming will be in the Middle East for at least nine months.
The community is invited to an official send-off at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Campbell County High School football field, followed by a family barbecue and a meet and greet with Gov. Mark. Gordon.
These last few months, the members of Alpha Battery have been working to prepare for the deployment, making sure that everything back home in Wyoming will be fine while they’re gone.
Sgt. First Class Jesse Pangus, the longest-serving member of the unit in Gillette, said it’s the first time “since the Korean War that we (Wyoming) have deployed a battalion into theater.”
This battalion is a high mobility artillery rocket system, or HIMARS, battalion, Pangus said, and next week, “the unit will deploy in its real purpose, and do its real job. It’s pretty historical for us.”
This will be Pangus’s fifth deployment. He didn’t think he’d make it to No. 5. He kept talking about how he was going to retire before going out for a fifth time. He remembers sitting in a classroom in the armory and saying out loud that he was retiring after getting the news.
“Then I turned around, got out of my own way, and all the kids’ eyes were this big, their mouths were hanging open,” he said.
He’s served in the military for longer than many of them have been alive, and for their sake, he decided to stick around for one more deployment.
“I’m hoping that I can influence a couple young soldiers and maybe they’ll be willing to reinvest back into this unit and community,” he said.
One of those young soldiers is Specialist Dakota Morgan, who joined the National Guard because it had been a childhood dream of his. Right after finishing basic training, he found out that he would be deployed.
This will be the first time he’s traveled out of the country.
“I’m excited to go over and nervous at the same time,” Morgan said. “I don’t know what to expect but I’m just going to roll with the punches.”
Keith is being deployed for the second time. He originally joined the National Guard because of the college benefits, but his reasoning changed shortly after arriving at the armory and meeting his fellow soldiers.
“Joining the brotherhood, the camaraderie in this battery and in the community, it pulls you in and you never want to leave it,” he said.
Typically the unit will train one weekend every month. This deployment will push them to become a well-oiled machine, Pangus said.
“Doing it one weekend a month doesn’t really get you to that super sharp razor’s edge, and that’s what this is going to do for this entire unit,” he said. “We’re going to go from a broad sword to a fine scalpel.”
“Everybody refers to us as the weekend warriors,” Keith said. “Where it’s true to a point, we’re all very competent in our designated areas, but actually going over and being active, doing it day to day, you really do develop a certain level of experience and expertise.”
There will be a lot of first-timers on this mission, and Keith said he’s told them to keep an open mind.
“Don’t be narrow-minded, there’s so much to learn and so much to see,” he said, adding that it’s important to keep a balanced perspective. “You can’t just focus on everything that’s going on back home, and you can’t just focus on everything that’s going on right in front of you.”
“Keep a positive attitude,” Pangus said. “We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we react to it. That’s the key.”
As much as he loves living in the U.S., Pangus said it will be nice to get away from all of the political noise that’s going on, particularly on the national level.
“We fight for people to have really crappy, crybaby opinions, and that’s their right,” Pangus said. “If they choose to look at the world all pessimistically and see negatives in everything, that’s their choice.”
When they’re out in the Middle East, politics is at the “very bottom” of the list of things to worry about, Keith said.
“You’ve got more stuff to worry about than who’s the president’s going to be or anything like that,” he said. “All (politics) does is create chaos and panic, and with the profession that we’re in, especially with the younger guys, they don’t need extra chaos and panic in their lives.”
While there’s all this chaos going on politically, one thing that’s remained constant is Campbell County’s support for the military. Pangus called Gillette the “best community I’ve ever served in, the people come out and support us in spades.”
Whether it’s making sure the families of the soldiers are taken care of or welcoming them back when they return, Gillette rallies around its troops, Pangus said. When the soldiers of Alpha Battery are in the desert thinking about what’s going on back home, it helps to know there’s a support system of people ready to step up when help is needed.
“It makes a huge difference,” he said.
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