Tuned up by their heavy engagement in the 2009 flood fight, about 700 North Dakota National Guard soldiers are preparing to take over the lead role in defending Kosovo's emerging democracy.
In the largest single deployment ever of North Dakota National Guard soldiers, troops from Grand Forks, Fargo and throughout the state will depart in mid-August for several weeks of training in Indiana and Germany before arriving in Kosovo in November, said Capt. Dan Murphy, a Guard spokesman.
North Dakota Brig. Gen. Al Dohrmann will command a KFOR task force of 2,200 soldiers, including the 700 North Dakotans, 700 troops from other states and about 800 soldiers from other NATO countries.
North Dakota will rotate in to replace California as the task force headquarters element, Murphy said.
Many of the soldiers will be assigned to "liaison monitoring teams," going out into the country to help local communities with such problems as building or maintaining water and sewer facilities "and otherwise helping Kosovo continue to grow as an independent state," Murphy said.
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North Dakota received a notice of training and alert of a pending mobilization in November 2007, and many of the soldiers have received specialized training since then, he said.
That included flood duty, which gave many of the troops a chance to coordinate efforts with various local entities and tackle local problems and emergencies -- challenges they are likely to face in Kosovo.
"This will provide some unique challenges to the North Dakota Guard," Murphy said, "but there is a lot of experience in these troops. There were a lot of North Dakota soldiers working with local units during the floods, resolving disputes, helping to fix problems as they arise."
'Peace mission'
Larger total numbers of North Dakota Guard members were deployed at times such as World War II, Murphy said, but never so many marshaled in a single deployment.
The 700 represent about one-sixth of the state's 4,300 soldiers and airmen. A few dozen others are deployed, including 39 soldiers of the 188th Air Defense Artillery from Grand Forks who left in January for a year in Afghanistan. They're due home in January 2010.
The "peace enforcement mission" in Kosovo will extend into August 2010, Murphy said.
"Kosovo is described as a fairly mature area, a calm but fragile environment," he said.
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Falling in line behind the North Dakotans in this KFOR rotation will be about 700 National Guard soldiers from Arizona, Kansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Michigan, Virginia, California and Utah.
The remaining 800 soldiers will be from Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and other NATO nations, Murphy said.
NATO has led an international Kosovo Force (KFOR) since June 1999 seeking to build peace and stability in the area. In all, more than 14,000 KFOR troops are deployed to help maintain a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all citizens, irrespective of their ethnic origin, according to the NATO Web page.
After a declaration of Kosovo independence Feb. 17, 2008, NATO reaffirmed that KFOR would remain in Kosovo on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 unless the United Nations Security Council decides otherwise.
In June 2008, NATO assumed new responsibilities in Kosovo "to support the development of professional, democratic and multi-ethnic security structures," according to the Web site.
