FORT SILL, Okla. -- As the mayor of a municipality in the shadow of Fort Dix, Pemberton Township's David A. Patriarca has plenty of opportunities to watch soldiers train.

     Most of the invitations come from the New Jersey Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, or ESGR, which often arranges trips to allow elected officials to observe National Guard and reserve troops train before they head to war.

     Patriarca always declined, opting to tend to constituent needs instead.

     “I figured I didn't need to know what they were doing—as long as they knew what they were doing,” Patriarca said with a laugh recently.

     That changed when Patriarca got the opportunity to travel to Fort Sill, Okla. on April 9 for the departure ceremony for the Iraq-bound 1-150th Assault Helicopter Battalion of the New Jersey Army National Guard. Thirteen of the battalion's roughly 250 soldiers are Pemberton Township residents, more than any other municipality.

     “With numbers like that, there's no way I was going to miss this,” Patriarca said after watching the battalion receive final recognition for successfully completing its pre-deployment training at a ceremony on a blustery Oklahoma afternoon.

     Patriarca was joined at the ceremony by Gov. Jon Corzine, Rep. Rush Holt (12th Dist.), nearly a dozen state lawmakers and other elected officials and employers as well as Major Gen. Glenn K. Rieth, the state adjutant general.

     The elected officials and a half dozen of the soldiers' civilian employers made a one-day round-trip to Oklahoma from McGuire Air Force Base aboard a New Jersey Air Guard KC-135 tanker.

     Arrangements for the trip were made by ESGR, a Pentagon-sponsored organization that protects the employment rights of military reservists.

     In a whirlwind series of events, the dignitaries joined the New Jersey troops for a barbeque, signed a statement of support for the work of the ESGR and then headed to the parade field for a departure ceremony for the 150th and its higher headquarters, the 28th Aviation Brigade of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. The New Jersey troops were the guests of honor at a smaller departure ceremony that followed. More than a dozen soldiers were promoted at that ceremony.

     After it was over, the soldiers from Pemberton Township made their way over to Patriarca.

     “When I found out the mayor of my town came all this way for this, I was kind of blown away,” said Sgt. 1st Class Gerald Cole, a full-time member of the 150th and a township resident. “It's an honor.”

Patriarca said the honor was his.

     “I'm so proud to be mayor of a town with so many military residents,” he said. “They make great residents. We'll be waiting for these guys when they come back.”

During an Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) Boss Lift to Fort Sill, Okla., the mayor of Pemberton Township David A. Patriarca signed a State of Support on April 9 for the municipal employees that serve in one of the seven reserve components. Patriarca was joined by other civic leaders from the local and state government to visit the more than 250 New Jersey Army National Guard Soldiers of the 1-150th Assault Helicopter Battalion as the troops prepared to leave the mobilizations and head to Iraq. Photo by Tech. Sgt. Mark Olsen, 177FW/PA.