The detachment commander is Lt.
The detachment of 16 soldiers from Camp Dodge is made up almost entirely of veteran Guard members who are at least 40 to 50 years old. Their mission will be to train soldiers in the fledgling Afghan national army, said Lt. Col. Gregory Hapgood, the Iowa National Guard’s public affairs officer. They all have a minimum of 15 years of experience in infantry, artillery,military intelligence or combat engineers, and they were hand-picked by Guard commanders for their training skills. The unit includes Lt. Col. Allen Bloemendaal, 56, a farmer from Sioux Center who is being mobilized for the first time in his 32-year career in the National Guard. Another is Lt. Col. Samuel Owens, 42, of Urbandale, a postal inspector in civilian life who has spent more than 20 years in the military. The detachment commander is Lt. Col. Brett Hora, 41, of Ankeny, with 24 years of Guard service. “There are at least two grandpas that I know of. They are kind of the graybeards,” Hapgood said. Other Iowa units mobilized in recent years have had some individual soldiers in their 40s and 50s, but this detachment is without a doubt the oldest as a single group that has been deployed, he said. The detachment received a customary patriotic send-off Tuesday morning that was attended by about 300 people at Iowa National Guard headquarters in Johnston. The soldiers left soon afterward for a flight to Camp Shelby, MS, where they will spend the next 45 days getting ready to go overseas. They will face some element of danger in Afghanistan because they will be embedded with Afghan combat troops, serving as mentors, and helping with training and planning.
