Local National Guard unit praised

Local National Guard Family Readiness Group chairperson Joyce Jones, right, accepts her organization’s state charter from Capt. Norman Cunningham, commander of the McMinnville unit.

The Family Readiness Group of McMinnville’s unit of the Tennessee National Guard has become the first such group in the 3rd Squadron of the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment to receive an official charter from the state of Tennessee.

“It is an honor to become the first Family Readiness Group to become chartered, but even greater when you consider you are receiving this certificate only one year to the day after forming,” I Troop Commander Capt. Norman Cunningham said upon presenting the charter during a unit drill held earlier this month.

Organized in December 2001, the local Family Readiness Group was described by I Troop 1st Sgt. Willie Bowers as a “chain of concern.” Such groups, he said, are the military’s main method of communicating quickly with many soldiers’ families.

In time of deployment, he explained, the military does not have the resources to contact all of the families of all of its servicemen with important data, so the groups, using phone trees, are the most effective way to quickly communicate news and information from a deployed unit.

The groups also act as a support group. In times of deployment, the groups’ members, usually the spouses of the soldiers, will offer support, help and assistance to each other. In times of peace, members will meet to discuss topics of interest to military families or to train themselves in skills that might be needed when a spouse is called to active duty and deployed.

“They’re like an auxiliary, but they actually have a function,” he said.

Led by chairperson Joyce Jones, the local Family Readiness Group has approximately 70 active members. Though the group has not yet had the opportunity to mobilize, as the unit was not called up to active duty during the past year, they did receive the chance to test their network apparatus this summer, when the 278th ACR was on rotation at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California.

Bowers added the group has taken center stage among I Troop’s priorities as the world situation is becoming increasingly unstable and many Tennessee National Guard units have already been activated.