Re-electionist Gov. Juan N. Babauta plans to fly to war-stricken Iraq next month to visit deployed CNMI troops.<\/p>\n
Babauta, who just got back from a U.S. trip, which included a meeting with the reservists in Fort Polk, Louisiana last week, said that he, together with Guam Gov. Felix Camacho and possibly Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, may be allowed to join a military trip to Iraq a few weeks from now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just waiting for the go-signal. We\u2019re hoping to leave next month. I promised the guys I\u2019d go to Iraq,\u201d said Babauta.<\/p>\n
He said another governor from the Pacific and maybe a congressional representative from Guam or Hawaii would be welcomed to join the Iraq trip.<\/p>\n
Babauta said the CNMI reservists\u2019 training at Fort Polk went \u201coutstandingly well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commanding officer and I spoke and he told me that our men did outstandingly well during the training. I heard praises for our reservists,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n
He said the 100th battalion that included the 80-plus CNMI reservists trained at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey trained in a best combat training center in the nation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
JRTC, which began operations in Louisiana in 1993, uses a training program that heavily integrates Air Force and other military service personnel, as well as host-nation and civilian personnel to make the course \u201cuniquely realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n
While at the center, the reservists trained with contingency and special operations soldiers\u2014including paratroopers, air assault soldiers, Special Forces and Rangers\u2014who are among the first to be called in a military crisis.<\/p>\n
Reservists were reportedly trained to operate heavy armored units equipped with tanks and armored personnel carriers.<\/p>\n
They are expected to be deployed to Iraq before the end of the month.<\/p>\n
Fort Polk was established in 1941 and was named in honor of the Rev. Leonidas Polk, the first Episcopal bishop of the Diocese of Louisiana and a Confederate general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Re-electionist Gov. Juan N. Babauta plans to fly to war-stricken Iraq next month to visit deployed CNMI troops.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}