NORTH MS (WCBI) – The Mississippi National Guard is putting boots on the ground across North Mississippi to assist with Winter Storm Fern Recovery efforts.
Our Kealy Shields spoke with members of Delta Troop 1-98 cavalry to learn more about the special task force responding during this time of crisis.
“The Army National Guard, we stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States and America in close combat, and that enemy this time just so happens to be ICE,” said Captain Johnathan Cheney.
Sometimes your greatest enemy isn’t a person or force, but an act of Mother Nature.
The Mississippi National Guard has formed the Delta Troop: Sabers Task Force.
A command made up of men and women from various units from across the state, designated to aid North Mississippi during its most recent weather crisis.
“We’ve done everything, in the last couple of days, as far as anything from route clearance to pulling security, doing welfare checks, pulling people out of ditches that are stuck, just about anything you can imagine. We’re just there to support the community in any way. If we can make it happen, our leadership has said, do whatever we gotta do to help out our communities,” said Cheney.
A big part of the guard’s response is communicating with other local and state emergency response teams.
But preparing for disaster doesn’t just happen before the storm hits.
its something guardsmen do from the beginning.
“We train every day, like, it might be the last time that we train before we’ve got to go out and face a natural disaster, whether it be a tornado, hurricane, route security, ice storm, no… or if we’re going overseas in a combat situation. The training doesn’t really change. We just adapt to the environment,” said Cheney.
For Staff Sergeant Cabot Barden, being able to serve his country and home state was his call to action.
“for me, that… that was the whole reason I joined, was, definitely being able to reach out, give support where it’s needed …Be it we’re able to provide some kind of support to the community, and that’s, for me, the biggest reward of being able to even put this uniform on,” said SSGT Cabor Barden.
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