Reserve unit deployed from Knoxville

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Posted 7:36AM on Monday, January 21, 2002

KNOXVILLE - About 90 members of the 489th Civil Affairs Battalion embarked Sunday on an overseas mission as part of the nation's war on terrorism, the Army Reserve unit's second deployment abroad in less than a year. The unit, based in Knoxville, is to train first at Fort Bragg, N.C., then at another location in the United States before heading abroad. The training and mission sites were not disclosed for security reasons. Once overseas, the unit will help with refugee control, distinguishing between refugees and those posing as refugees, Maj. Don Amburn said. The unit also will help evacuate civilians out of potentially dangerous places and reconstruct a stable infrastructure using foreign aid. The 489th includes a health inspector, a veterinarian, a linguist, construction contractors, civil engineers, a firearms instructor, computer programmers, police officers and an international nuclear-arms inspector. The 489th is under the command of Lt. Col. Roland DeMarcellus, a U.S. Department of State employee who commutes to Knoxville to oversee it. ``I intend for us to be the best,'' he said Sunday. Normally reservists live within 75 miles of their base, but civil affairs soldiers may live up to 200 miles away, so the unit has reservists who live in Georgia and Alabama. Five of its members served in Bosnia in 1995. The unit returned from a second 8.5-month tour of Bosnia last February. It is unusual for the unit to be deployed twice in such a short period of time, but in tense areas of the world ``where civilians are involved, you'll find us,'' Amburn said. Maj. Dan McCabe of Knoxville will be going out into the field to assess community needs. ``I want to get out and meet the locals,'' he said, adding that he believes his place is out in the countryside and not in a nice clean office. ``Dirt is good,'' he said. The unit previously has served in Desert Storm, Panama, Grenada and Egypt. It also worked in Homestead, Fla., after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The 489th's next mission is expected to be similar to its most recent mission to Bosnia. U.S. Rep. John J. Duncan, R-Knoxville, wished members of the 489th well at a private meeting Friday night.