NET News Statewide: Perspective - Call to Duty, 3/12/03

More than 15 hundred Nebraska National Guard and Reserve soldiers have been called to active duty. It’s the largest deployment of Nebraska citizen soldiers since World War II – all part of the build-up for possible war with Iraq. To give you an idea of what life is like for all these soldiers, "Statewide" followed one unit from the early stages of their call to duty. The 105th Personnel Detachment is based in Lincoln, but includes soldiers from all over the state. 19-year-old college students and 55-year-old Vietnam vets. Newlyweds and parents with small children. Half are women. Their mission isn’t fodder for movie scripts – they process paperwork and make I.D. cards and dog tags. But the risk of working in a war zone is still great. At any time they could ship out from Fort Riley, Kan., for an undisclosed location, possibly the Middle East. They could be gone for the next year. As "Statewide’s" Mike Tobias reports, they leave behind a lot of people impacted by their call to duty.