Guard outlines changes to Worland unit

WORLAND — With little to no impact on the communities where changes are being made in the Wyoming National Guard, there has been few public attending recent townhall meetings.

Wyoming Army National Guard Capt. Thomas Blackburn of the public affairs office said they have been averaging about six to eight people in the public meetings. He said there was only one person in attendance at the Worland meeting Monday morning.

The purpose of the townhall/public meetings is to discuss the Wyoming Army National Guard unit changes and moves. Public meetings were held in Worland, Powell and Lovell on Monday with meetings in Casper and Sheridan today.

“On average we are seeing six to eight. Most are veterans just figuring out what’s going on,” Blackburn said.

He said there was eight people at the meeting in Powell and about seven in Lovell.

For Worland, Blackburn said, the community will see little impact because there will still be a guard presence in town and the armory is not closing.

He said the Worland unit in the 920th Forward Support Company, with about 75 guard members, will be swapping with Douglas unit of the 960th Brigade Support Battalion, with about 34 members.

The Guard is working “on a case by case basis with each guard member affected by the moves so they are satisfied with where they are drilling and with the future of their career,” Blackburn said.

He said most guard members are traditional guardsmen and don’t need to live in the community where their unit is assigned. He said they may only need to travel on weekends. He added, however, for Worland and Douglas, there are similarities to the positions so guard members can drill where they are currently living.

With the 920th the larger unit, Blackburn said the Guard wanted to move the unit to a location with a larger recruiting pool. He added that the 960th headquarters is also moving from Casper to Sheridan, so moving the Douglas unit to Worland makes sense geographically to be closer to the new headquarters for the 960th.

Overall the 960th is decreasing in size, something the Guard has been planning for, according to Col. Jesse Kirchmeier, current Wyoming Army National Guard chief of staff. Kirchmeier said, “Wyoming’s 960th will lose about 114 slots sometime in 2017 due to that mission change. It sounds worse than it is for the state,” he said. “We’ve known that change has been on the horizon and we’ve been planning for it by moving soldiers out of the unit and not filling unit vacancies after enlistments end or soldiers retire.”

Blackburn said the townhall meetings have been positively received, mainly because “no soldiers are losing jobs and no armories are closing.”

He added, “A lot of planning has gone into this.”

The townhall meetings are specifically for the public, he said, adding that separate meetings for the guard members have been held during recent drills.

“We are a heavily invested community organization,” said Brig. Gen. Steven Mount, commander of the Wyoming Army National Guard. “It was imperative to me during the planning of these moves and unit changes that we keep our folks in their local communities and keep our partnerships in those towns strong.”

When things are all said and done, the Wyoming Army Guard will go from an authorized strength of 1,707 soldiers to approximately 1,590 soldiers. Wyoming’s command team stressed that although the changes in force structure will mean some soldiers will be retrained and moved to fill vacancies in various units, no soldier will lose their military job.

The emphasis will be put on ensuring all Wyoming Guard soldiers affected will be assisted in transitioning throughout the change.

“We have been very soldier friendly throughout this process,” Mount said. “We have to take care of the folks in boots at the unit level.”

Changes are scheduled to be completed in fiscal year 2016.