The 19th Engineer Battalion cased its colors Nov. 14 in a ceremony on Brooks Field on Fort Knox to prepare for the upcoming deployment to Kuwait. Also on the field was the 42nd Clearance Company, which uncased its colors to signify its official transfer to the larger battalion, the 19th.
As most military readers know, casing the colors indicates a unit move; the flag won't be uncased until the battalion arrives in Kuwait. By the same token, the 42nd colors were cased in Bamberg, Germany earlier this year in preparation for the unit's move to Fort Knox.
When the 541st Sapper Company, also from Bamberg, joins the 19th next summer, the Knox engineers--with a strength of approximately 1,000 personnel--will become the largest engineer unit in the Army, explained Lt. Col. John Lloyd, the commander.
"No words can express how proud I am to be the commander of the 19th Engineer Battalion," he said during the ceremony.
In his welcoming remarks, Lloyd made a point to thank one of the unit's most faithful followers, the Solders of the 19th Combat Engineer Vietnam Association. The unit spent five years in Vietnam.
"We can never thank you enough for your sacrifices," Lloyd said.
While the engineers aren't looking forward to leaving their Families behind during the deployment, they are convinced, as Chaplain (Capt.) Abdiel Fuentes-Garza noted in the invocation, they are "heading out to do what's right."
Citing the unit's most recent deployment to New York last year in a humanitarian relief effort to the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the commander said the Soldiers experienced a huge sense of accomplishment in helping those less fortunate. The engineers pumped water out of flooded homes and office buildings as well as the site of the new construction at the former World Trade Center.
The 19th includes Soldiers from virtually every state in the union and Lloyd said he had met one Soldier in the unit who had emigrated to the U.S. from Siberia. This move to Kuwait will be the first deployment for most of the unit's Soldiers, which indicates that young men and women continue to enlist, despite the war's long duration.
"I'm honored to serve with these young people," Lloyd said.
As he noted, the chief of staff of the Army frequently says that the strength of the nation is its Army, the strength of the Army is its Soldiers, and the strength of Soldiers is the Family.
"We understand the sacrifices of Families because we experienced it," Lloyd explained. "While it hurts to say goodbye, we look forward to coming home in nine months to say, 'Mission Accomplished!'"
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