Montana guardsmen finish mission other unit refused in Iraq

'When you're given an order, you do your job'

A Kalispell National Guard unit stepped in to make a fuel delivery in Iraq last week after a South Carolina Army Reserve unit refused the mission.

Guard Maj. Scott Smith confirmed that the 639th Quartermaster Company of the Montana National Guard delivered the fuel after some South Carolina reservists made headlines by refusing the mission as too dangerous.

Initial reports indicated another platoon of South Carolina's 343rd Quartermaster Company had filled in on the job.

But National Guard officials in Helena and the wife of a Kalispell commander said the Montana contingent had actually tackled the convoy duty.

"They [the 639th] did pick up the mission," Smith said from Helena. "I can't elaborate any further."

Cindy Regnier of Kalispell said her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Fulton Regnier, called her Monday after returning from the five-day mission. He told her none of the guardsmen in the convoy were injured.

Smith said he could not elaborate because of a military investigation into the incident. Smith said he expected to have more details in coming days.

The Army announced last week it was investigating up to 19 members of a platoon of the 343rd, based in Rock Hill, S.C., after they refused to transport supplies from Tallil Air Base near Nasiriyah to Taji, north of Baghdad.

The Army reservists claimed the aircraft fuel was contaminated and their equipment was in poor working order and not sufficiently protected with armor.

Smith, however, said the trucks driven by the Montana Guard unit were no more heavily armored than those used by the South Carolina reservists.

According to Cindy Regnier, the 343rd recently took over delivery duties from the 639th. She said her husband was actually happy to head the mission after weeks on base.

"He was probably jumping up and down saying, 'Choose me, choose me,'" she said with a laugh.

Regnier said her husband provided no details about the unit that refused to deliver the fuel. She only knew what was reported in the media.

She said her husband and the other soldiers left with the fuel about two and half hours after receiving the order. They delivered the fuel in the trucks they took with them from their Kalispell armory.

"Each unit has their own equipment," she said.

Regnier said she figured that her husband, the convoy commander, was on a mission when he failed to call her a second time last week. She then learned the protesting reservists were at Tallil Air Base with her husband.

"Then I knew they got sent," she said.

Regnier said her husband was in a much better mood when she spoke with him on Monday. Since turning over convoy duties to the South Carolina unit, the 639th spent its days on detail and maintaining equipment.

Regnier said her husband was upset that she had told the Inter Lake about the 639th's completion of the controversial convoy.

"He said, 'It's not your place to do that,'" Cindy Regnier said.

But she said the whole country was talking about the soldiers who refused the mission. She thought it only right that the ones who did their duty get some recognition.

Soldiers of the 639th come from Kalispell, Libby and other areas of Montana. They deployed from Kalispell last December to Colorado, then left for Iraq in February.

Fulton Regnier was working as a brick mason at the time of his deployment. His wife said he had been fighting a medical discharge from the Army since 1997 after the Army deemed him undeployable because of running-induced asthma.

She said his 14-year Army career ended during the Clinton administration's military cutbacks. She said he joined the Guard but continued to appeal his case to get back in the Army to finish his career.

Even so, she said her husband, now 42, didn't complain about getting sent to Iraq or taking on the job another unit had refused. He also spent six months after 9/11 guarding the airport in Helena.

"He's a great soldier," she said. "He believes when you're given an order, you do your job."

Regnier still holds out hope that, working with Montana's senators, the Army will review its decision and reinstate him.

"He loves the military," she said.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com