From staff reports
news@joplinglobe.com
Nearly 160 soldiers in the 414th Military Police Company, an Army Reserve company based in Joplin, will ship out this weekend for Afghanistan.
“This will be the fourth deployment for the unit,” Capt. Brian Wotring, company commander, said Thursday.
The company, with soldiers from throughout the Four-State Area and elsewhere in the Midwest, will be handling “detention operations” at Bagram Airfield, Wotring said.
The 414th will be at the military base in Afghanistan for about 10 months.
The unit has 261 soldiers, Wotring said, but only 159 of them will ship out. The farewell ceremony is set for noon Saturday in Young Gymnasium at Missouri Southern State University. The unit will leave early Sunday morning.
“We go to Fort Bliss, Texas, for training,” Wotring said. “It will be about six weeks of training, then we go to Afghanistan.”
For several soldiers in the unit, the deployment will be their fourth. They served at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002-2003. About 100 soldiers served as a “filler unit” in Afghanistan in 2003-2004. The company was deployed in 2005-2006 to Iraq.
“They do a lot of missions outside deployment too,” Wotring said, noting that the soldiers also have been sent to Honduras, Panama, Egypt and Germany since 2001.
“Be proud,” Wotring said. “This unit has done a lot for their country.”
Joplin resident Naomi Hunter said she is encouraging residents to attend the ceremony Saturday. Her son, 1st Lt. Jeremiah Hunter, 32, who now lives in Columbia, is shipping out with the rest.
“We just really need people to come out and support our sons and daughters who are going overseas,” she said.
On the Net
To learn more about the 414th Military Police Company, go to www.ozarkwarriors.com.
