Texas State Guard Deploying for Annual Training
MAJ Michael Quinn Sullivan, PAO, TXSG
2012/06/21
BROWNWOOD, Texas – Beginning Thursday, June 21, members of the Texas State Guard will participate in annual training exercises at Camp Bowie ahead of the hurricane and wild-fire seasons. Units from around the state will take part in a simulated disaster, ensuring the TXSG is ready to provide relief services as requested by the state’s civil authorities.
“Annual training this year will focus on ensuring our units are ready to offer support services in response to a civil disaster,” said Maj. Gen. Raymond Peters, commanding general of the TXSG. “Entering hurricane season, Texans expect the Texas State Guard to be trained and ready to go when called, as we done so many times in recent years. Our motto is ‘Texans serving Texans,’ and annual training makes sure we’re able to do just that.”
Guardsmen from the Army and Air components will each spend four days at Camp Bowie, a Texas Military Forces training center located in west central Texas near the cities of Brownwood and Early. Training activities planned for TXSG personnel include the Texas Emergency Tracking Network (TETN), the National Incident Management System, mass care operations, wide area damage assessment, global positioning system operations, first aid, land navigation, radio communications and command post operations among other activities.
Annual training takes part in two iterations, June 21-24 and June 28-July 1, with roughly half of the TXSG participating in each session. The units also drill monthly at armories around the state.
The TXSG’s Maritime Regiment conducted annual training last month at Camp Swift near Bastrop.
More than two-thirds of the TXSG’s soldiers serve in the Army Component, and those men and women will therefore make up the bulk of the force participating in training.
“Our TXSG soldiers are true volunteers who take time from their jobs and families to train and serve,” said Brig. Gen. Manuel “Tony” Rodriguez, the Army Component commander. “These men and women train year-round, without pay and providing their own equipment, to successfully accomplish whatever missions they’re given. With the tremendous support of our families, neighbors and employers, the state guard can be ready to move.”
In recent years the TXSG has been called to active duty for nine hurricanes (Katrina, Rita, Dean, Humberto, Dolly, Eduard, Gustav, Ike, and Alex), severe flooding in Marble Falls in 2007, and the 2011 wildfires in central Texas. TXSG is also the lead military component for Operation Lone Star in the Rio Grande Valley, the state’s largest annual medical emergency preparedness mission.
The Texas State Guard is one of three branches of the Texas Military Forces (TXMF), operating under the command of the Adjutant General of Texas and the Governor as Commander-in-Chief of all state military forces. The TXMF includes the Texas Army National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard.
The mission of the Texas State Guard (TXSG) is to provide mission-ready military forces to assist state and local authorities in times of state emergencies; to conduct homeland security and community service activities under the umbrella of Defense Support to Civil Authorities; and to augment the Texas Army National Guard and Texas Air National Guard as required.
Headquartered at Camp Mabry in Austin, Texas, the TXSG functions as an organized state militia under the authority of Title 32 of the U.S. Code and Chapter 431 of the Texas Government Code.