Photo caption: Warren resident Chief Warrant Officer 3 James O’Connor (right) of the 1st Battalion, 150th Aviation, New Jersey Army National Guard, located at Trenton-Mercer Airport, was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by Governor James E. McGreevey (left), Commander-in-Chief of the New Jersey National Guard, at the Annual Military Review held at the National Guard Training Center in Sea Girt, N.J., on Sept. 29. Chief O’Connor received the award for meritorious service as part of the Aviation Task Force, which provided support following the attack on the World Trade Center. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Mark Olsen, New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs Public Affairs.

Background on 1st Battalion, 150th Aviation, New Jersey Army National Guard: New Jersey Army National Guard aviation assets, in addition to their combat training, state emergency operations missions, and support of Drug Interdiction activities and Homeland Security operations have been tasked to perform other “non-traditional” missions. Army Guard helicopters and crews assisted the FBI in their bio-terrorism investigation by transporting anthrax samples collected at the Hamilton Postal Facility to the Army’s Medical Research and Materiel Command Analysis facility at Ft. Detrick, Maryland.