At left, leaders of the U.S. Army Reserve's 961st Engineer Battalion prepare to receive the eagle feather blessing conferred by Comanche Indian Veterans Association Chaplain Jimmy Caddo during a special ceremony at the Comanche Nation Complex, Nov. 9...

Tommy Parker, left, great-grandson of famed Comanche leader Quanah Parker, shakes hands with Clifford Red Elk while at the memorial to the Comanche Code Talkers of World War II. At right is Kevin Pohawpatchoko, commander of the Comanche Indian Vetera...

Lanny Asepermy (right) of the Comanche Indian Veterans Association provides the back-story on the CIVA mascot held by CIVA Commander Kevin Pohawpatchoko. Elizabeth Plata made the bear's outfit while her husband, Joseph Plata, was in the hospital. The...

Lt. Col. Kenneth Bryant, left, and Command Sgt. Maj. Randy White, center, the command team of the 961st Engineer Battalion, listen attentively to Clifford Red Elk, sergeant at arms of the Comanche Indian Veterans Association, while on tour of the Com...

FORT SILL, Oklahoma (Nov. 15, 2018) -- Army Reserve engineers who are here for part of their premobilization training will now carry some reflected glory from the Comanche Nation's long-esteemed warrior heritage.

At a Nov. 9 ceremony in the Comanche Nation Complex's Watchetaker Hall, the Comanche Indian Veterans Association (CIVA) bestowed on the 961st Engineer Battalion the right to use the name "Task Force Comanche" while supporting Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait, and to be henceforth known as the "Comanche Battalion."

Mutual respect was the watchword of the day as the Soldier engineers learned to call themselves "Numu," the Comanche word for "the people." To start out the day, retired Sgt. Maj. Lanny Asepermy introduced officers of CIVA and the 961st Engineer Battalion to each other at a reception in the administration building's Patriot Room.

Clifford Red Elk took the Reserve Soldiers on tour of the many memorials that the complex has recognizing the contributions of Comanche veterans over the course of every conflict since World War I.

The group made the rounds of the CIVA Court of Honor, Tahsequah Garden, and the Comanche War Scout Circle of Honor. Red Elk's last stop was the Code Talkers Memorial, which has a special place of honor.

Kevin Pohawpatchoko, CIVA commander, William Nelson, Comanche tribal chairman, and Jimmy Arterberry, tribal administrator, offered welcoming remarks.

Clifford Takawana presented a history of the Comanche Nation. He described the pivotal role horses played in the lives of those who called themselves "The Lords of the Plains."

He even let the engineers in on a few secrets about how Comanches caught and tamed wild horses. (Wait until they've been eating grass all day and go to a watering hole to wash it all down. Then they can't run as fast.) Roger Tehauno, CIVA vice commander, whose last name means "Texan" in Comanche, told the history of the Comanche flag to the Soldiers of the 961st, which is headquartered in the Dallas suburb of Seagoville and is made up primarily of Army Reserve Soldiers from Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

"The Comanche Flag Song" is the equivalent of the Comanches' national anthem, so all the Soldier engineers saluted when Comanche Nation Princess Ashleigh Mithlo sang it.

CIVA leaders presented the 961st Engineer Battalion command team of Lt. Col. Kenneth Bryant and Command Sgt. Maj. Randy White with a Comanche flag. They in turn presented Pohawpatchoko with the first two commander's coins minted for the Comanche Battalion.

The best was yet to come. Jimmy Caddo, CIVA chaplain, conducted a cedar ceremony to send up prayers for the deploying Soldiers, followed by an eagle feather blessing.

To receive the blessing, the Soldiers faced eastward and brought both hands down over their bodies, palms facing inward, four times. "War Journey" songs would follow.

Bryant, the battalion commander for the 961st, said the driver for its affiliation with the Comanche Nation is the fact that 95 percent of its Soldiers were born and raised in Oklahoma and Texas.

"Historically, these were lands of the Comanches. Back to Seagoville, where our unit is, that was a former Comanche spring. And so, with that history, that connection, we started building that relationship with the Comanche Nation," Bryant explained.

White, from McAlester, Okla., made the first contact by reaching out to Asepermy.

"We're real excited. It's a great honor, especially with us being Oklahomans and Texans, to be affiliated with those veterans who were traditionally the greatest warriors that were ever in Oklahoma and Texas," the lieutenant colonel said.

The 961st Engineer Battalion has two companies in Oklahoma and three in Texas. For this deployment, it will be taking its headquarters and headquarters company, its forward support company, and the 401st Engineer Company, which is a bridge company based in Mustang.

While overseas, the 961st will have command and control of two additional companies, one from Parkersburg, W.Va., and the other from Alabama.

"We have a route clearance company, we have a bridge training team, we have vertical and horizontal companies. We'll roughly have about 680 people under the battalion," Bryant said. "We'll fall under the 20th Engineer Brigade, which is an active-duty unit."

The 961st is at Fort Sill for two weeks of drivers' training, marksmanship, and sapper work at the demolition range before going to Fort Bliss, Texas, for the last month of pre-mob training.

"We get a lot of quality training done here using the Fort Sill facilities," Bryant noted.