Members of California’s last National Guard Unit to return home from Iraq were led by Petaluma teen bagpiper Declan Villa in Sunday’s annual Veterans Day Parade.
Having participated in 15 annual Veterans Day Parades in Petaluma over the past two decades, Aviation Department guardsmen in charge of helicopter maintenance were deployed from Stockton, in November 2010 for what would be one of the worst years of rocket mortar attacks in the history of the Iraq war.
“Though our unit missed both the 2010 and 2011 Petaluma Veterans Day Parades,” said former British soldier and Sergeant in the U.S. Army National Guard since 2008, Peter Bradley, “we were awarded the Combat Action Badge citation by the President upon our return.”
Bradley, one of a handful of skilled aviation unit guardsmen currently living in Petaluma, explained how 85 rockets and mortar bombs had pummeled U.S. troops alongside the biggest mobilization of National Guardsmen stationed outside of Baghdad between 2010 and 2011.
“We lost a lot of ground equipment, but by absolute miracle, our aviation engine mechanics never lost a single Chinook unit of some 240 helicopters.”
Average age of the National Guard’s Combat Aviation engineers, formed in Stockton in the 1940s, is early twenties. “During peacetime, we are mainly deployed for firefighting,” said Bradley, whom I spoke to for my Argus Courier column, last week. “We’re expecting up to 25 of our guys to participate in Sunday’s parade in formation high mobility humvees for what will be our first homecoming parade.”
Like the majority of young people who enlist for this particular unit of the National Guard, Bradley has pursued a successful career in aviation. “Many guardsmen have used the G.I Bill to go back to school,” said Bradley, employed by Reach Air Ambulance Helicopters of Santa Rosa. The unit has since deployed more of its guardsmen to Afghanistan.
Each year, as aging World War II Veterans from all over the Bay Area continue to participate in the largest parade in the North Bay, it's extremely moving to see the trace of brave young men and women's faces in each proud, old profile.
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