Supervisors sample reservists' 'other job'

CAMP SHELBY, MISS. -- The 17 bosses flew out of RDU International Airport soldier class, not business class.

That meant earplugs to block the drone echoing around the cavern of the C-130 transport plane's cargo area and a canvas sling for a seat all the way to a National Guard base in Mississippi. Later, they were ambushed with a bomb and automatic weapons and faced an even more common peril of military service -- a late-night PowerPoint presentation.

The employers, who included representatives of the cities of Raleigh and Durham, were invited to get a taste of military life this past weekend at Camp Shelby. The idea was to familiarize them with their employees' other job and to let them know the military appreciates their own sacrifices. All have workers who double as citizen-soldiers with the N.C. National Guard's 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, which is on a three-week training mission to prepare for a combat tour in Iraq early next year.

Sending 3,800 National Guard citizen-soldiers to Iraq creates problems for their families. It also has a huge impact on hundreds of employers, who somehow have to cover for the Guard soldiers for a year and keep at least a comparable position open for their return. What's more, this is the unit's second tour in Iraq, an increasingly common thing for reservists here.

"We're asking a lot of these employers these days, and we want to show them why their sacrifices are important," said Maj. Gen. William E. Ingram Jr., the commanding general of the N.C. National Guard, who went on the trip. "A man or woman who's valuable to us is valuable to them, and we know that."

There are about 23,000 Guard and Reserve troops in the state, working for about 8,300 civilian employers. Many of these troops have been called to active duty for yearlong tours -- some of them more than once.

As part of continuing efforts to keep the relationship with their employers strong, a Department of Defense agency called Employer Support of the National Guard and Reserves sponsors such "boss lifts" two or three times a year, though most of the trips are to in-state training events, said the group's state head, Johnny Dwiggins.

Iraq in Mississippi

The lessons at Camp Shelby were realistic. Big sections of the 280-square-mile base have been rebuilt to resemble Iraq, despite the dense pine forest. Among other touches, there is a village of Arabic-speaking natives of the Middle East, checkpoints and fake buildings with Arabic graffiti. Some trash was even trucked in to simulate the roadside garbage that makes spotting improvised bombs even harder in Iraq.

Minutes after rolling away from the landing strip, a loud "pop" sounded as the bosses' bus was attacked with a fake roadside bomb, then a group of "insurgents" hidden in a tree line beside the road blasted it with blank rounds from AK-47 assault rifles.

This sort of ambush is typical of what soldiers deal with, said Maj. Scotty Carpenter, the camp's protocol officer, who led the tour. The training, though, subjects them to more attacks and other problems than are normal so they can make the most of their limited time at Camp Shelby.

The bus then toured one of the mock bases built to resemble those in Iraq, complete with the standard gravel everywhere, rows of housing units flanked by prefabricated concrete bunkers, portable toilets and simple bathrooms. While they are training, the soldiers live in these bases, where they are subjected to periodic "attacks."

The bosses also saw a typical supply convoy forming and got a range-side explanation of the training for a unit of Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Then they stopped in a field where an artillery unit had set up its massive self-propelled howitzers, among them a gun commanded by Staff Sgt. Kenneth Church, an N.C. Highway Patrol trooper. Two of his Highway Patrol supervisors from Eastern North Carolina, James Lane and Kevin Owens, were on the tour. Lane took advantage of the opportunity not only to see how Church's crew operated the huge artillery piece but also to fire it himself.