Guest Speaker: SFC Edmond Schaffer, Illinois Army National Guard
In the years since 9/11, members of Alpha Battery of the 2/122 Field Artillery in Sycamore have been sent to places around the world; but most of their deployments didn't necessarily involve the use of artillery.
SFC Edmond Schaffer has been with the battery since the mid 90's; he says in the days following 9/11, his unit wound up being sent to U.S. bases in Germany to act as a military police force, providing perimeter security to a base which previously had been open to the public and freely accessed. The unit was later given actual MP training, and sent to Fort Carson in Colorado; they took the place of regular Army personnel who had been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan, continuing to secure the base against any possible threats.
The unit was also deployed to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, providing security in the weeks following the city's devastation; they were eventually shipped out to Afghanistan, where they helped to train local police forces in security tactics to help them better deal with insurgents. They even got to use the skills associated with their official MOS, as they took part in live artillery drills.
Schaffer says there's been a militia or National Guard unit associated with Sycamore since 1876; in the mid-1930's, the city was selected to be one of just a handful of cities to have a proper Armory constructed within its limits for training and storage purposes. The Sycamore Armory has been in regular use since 1939, and the units base there have covered a variety of operating specialties...from infantry, to medical, to chemical warfare and now its current operations.