The Ukraine-Russia war has dominated headlines for months. This is the untold story of the Illnois National Guard in Ukraine.
The Ukraine-Russia war has dominated headlines for months. This is the untold story of the Illnois National Guard in Ukraine.
An untold story: the Illinois National Guard in Ukraine
I want to tell you an untold story. A story we haven’t heard on tv news, or cable news, or read on our internet feed, or if you’re as old as I am, read in your newspaper. That’s the story of the Illinois National Guard in Ukraine.
There’s been mention of the US military training the Ukrainians. You may have even heard a mention of the California National Guard training the Ukrainians, but you’ve not heard public mention of the Illinois National Guard.
My friends, the Illinois National Guard was there at the beginning and as some of you here may know, we were there just months before the Russians invaded. Our support to Ukraine began in the last century. We sent a platoon-sized element to Ukraine in 1999 to begin training the Ukrainian Army. A platoon is about thirty-five soldiers.
Our relationship with Ukraine’s next-door neighbor, Poland was just six-years-old then. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the United States partnered select state National Guards with Eastern European nations that upon leaving the Warsaw Pact sought a closer relationship with the US and NATO. The Illinois National Guard was paired with Poland in 1993.
With our training and assistance, Poland and Ukraine in the late 1990’s formed the Polish-Ukrainian Peace Force Battalion. That very same unit saw service in Kosovo with elements of our 106th Aviation Battalion in 2008 and 2009. When I visited our troops in Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, in November 2008, it was Ukrainian and Polish soldiers who took me on patrol through local villages during a twelve-inch snowstorm.
Ukrainian soldiers and officers were becoming well-acquainted with the Illinois National Guard by that time, as we sent battalion sized deployments to NATO Peace Shield exercises at Yavorov Training Center in 2000 and 2001, a battalion is generally about five-hundred soldiers. Yes, that’s the same Yavorov that Russian cruise missiles struck a few weeks ago.
Although the California National Guard was Ukraine’s state partner, because we were next-door neighbor Poland’s partner, we often supported the Ukrainians and assisted the California Guard in that mission.
Our training assistance to Ukraine didn’t end in 2001. In 2005 Illinois sent an National Guard soldiers to act as observer/controllers for a twenty-two nation NATO war games staff exercise at the newly built Ukrainian War College. As the colonel commanding that group, I can vouch for the complexity of merging soldiers from former Warsaw Pact countries, such as Poland and Ukraine, with our NATO allies, during those early days of cooperation.
And just last year we sent 165 soldiers from Headquarters Company, 33 Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Urbana, Illinois, for an eleven-month deployment to Yavorov. Those soldiers continued to build on the foundation laid by Illinois National Guardsmen for the last twenty-three years.
The Pentagon and indeed the rest of the world thought Putin’s grand land grab would succeed with ease. Most people believed the Ukrainian military would collapse under an armor assault that had them outgunned and outmanned. But the Ukrainians have shown what well-trained and well-led soldiers can do in defending their homeland from an autocratic aggressor.
The training, mentoring and fellowship that we of the Illinois National Guard have provided the Ukrainian military has played a critical role in their successful defense of their homeland. It is that training and that indomitable spirit which has given them the ability to hold the line until the resources we, and the world, are providing them could begin to flow in and provide them the materiel to turn the tide.
This story is like so many other untold stories. Few may know what the Illinois National Guard did, but we know. Those Guardsmen and women, do the things they do every day as Guardsmen not for fame, but for pride. Pride in defending freedom and democracy. Pride in protecting our neighbors from flood, fire and hurricanes. Pride in knowing that we are “Always Ready, Always There”.
Next weekend when you see a National Guardsman headed to weekend drill please remember that they’re part of an untold story.
(c) William L. Enyart 2022
www.billenyart.com
Email: bill@billenyart.com
Audio production by: Tom Calhoun www.paguytom.com