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John Hollenhorst ReportingIn the past five years, about 5,000 Utah National Guard troops have been deployed overseas. It's the highest per-capita deployment rate in the country.
Today, a few of them were honored with a Freedom Salute Award.
It's been a very busy pace for the Utah Guard the last five years; Iraq, Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, the Mexican border. And it isn't over yet. Early tomorrow, 40 more guard troops will depart for Iraq.
It was a ceremonial "Freedom Salute", with patriotic tones we've been hearing a lot more of since 9-11.
This is the first get-together of the 115th Maintenance Company since it returned from Iraq in April. Families watched a slide show recapturing their so-called maintenance mission. Instead of staying "in the rear with the gear," they pulled convoy duty, security missions, and truck driving assignments in dangerous territory.
Capt. Budd Vogrinec/ Company Commander: "I had someone outside the wire, someone on the roads of Iraq, at least once a day."
Part of what kept morale up was the memory of September 11th.
Staff Sgt. Russell McVay/ Utah National Guard: "The guys I served with didn't forget about that."
The slide show featured a Toby Keith song clearly driven by anger over the 9-11 attacks.
"Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue"/ Song by Toby Keith: "This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage. You'll be sorry you messed with the U.S. of A."
That same outrage was a motivator for the 115th maintenance company.
Capt. Budd Vogrinec, Company Commander: "Oh, absolutely. Everybody over there understands that we are there to stomp out terrorism."
Sgt. Russell McVay/ Utah National Guard: "I think just watching everybody come together during 9-11. The firemen, the police, all the families, friends, just people in New York, was a big motivating factor to me."
But the September 11th justification for the war by the Bush administration is under political attack. Even the republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee just concluded there never was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Capt. Budd Vogrinec: "It probably matters in the political world. But when a soldier gets a mission, they concentrate on the mission at hand."
We're happy to say the 115th had no casualties whatsoever.
Tomorrow you can expect September 11th commemorations in many Utah locations from Logan to St. George, Wendover to Park City. Some are planned early in the morning to mark the exact moments when those terrible events took place five years ago.
