Reply #3: Possible Mutiny at Fort Dix?

[Maple]

Strains Felt By Guard Unit on Eve Of War Duty

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 19, 2004; Page A01

FORT DIX, N.J. -- The 635 soldiers of a battalion of the South Carolina National Guard scheduled to depart Sunday for a year or more in Iraq have spent their off-duty hours under a disciplinary lockdown in their barracks for the past two weeks.

The trouble began Labor Day weekend, when 13 members of the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment went AWOL, mainly to see their families again before shipping out. Then there was an ugly confrontation between members of the battalion's Alpha and Charlie batteries -- the term artillery units use instead of "companies" -- that threatened to turn into a brawl involving three dozen soldiers, and required the base police to intervene.

The 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment of the South Carolina Army National Guard marches to a final briefing before its move to Iraq. (Photos David Moore -- Fort Dix, U.s. Army Photo)

That prompted a barracks inspection that uncovered alcohol, resulting in the lockdown that kept soldiers in their rooms except for drills, barred even from stepping outside for a smoke, a restriction that continued with some exceptions until Sunday's scheduled deployment.

The battalion's rough-and-tumble experience at a base just off the New Jersey Turnpike reflects many of the biggest challenges, strains and stresses confronting the Guard and Reserve soldiers increasingly relied on to fight a war 7,000 miles away.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31689-2004Sep18.html