Guard's war days nearly over

Capt. Matt Misfeldt spent the first half of 2011 barking out orders as the Nebraska National Guardsmen under his command trained Afghan police north of Kabul.

Now Misfeldt is back in Omaha, more concerned with home remodeling than Afghanistan's reconstruction. More specifically, he's worried about a looming debate with his wife on a home improvement project he proposed.

He thinks they need to do it. She disagrees. Suddenly, his commander's status means very little.

"I can't give orders now," Misfeldt said this week. "Now I have to negotiate."

As Misfeldt readies for that tangle, he has left the deadly serious — some experts say intractable — problems of Afghanistan behind him.

In fact, he and many of the 3,100 Nebraska and Iowa National Guardsmen who returned home last month believe that they are finished with both Afghanistan and Iraq. Misfeldt deployed to each country once. Many of his fellow soldiers went three times or, if they volunteered, four or five times.

But those days appear to be over, Misfeldt said. "That's the general feeling," he said.

His military boss agrees, too, while cautioning that things can always change.

Brig. Gen. Judd Lyons, adjutant general of the Nebraska Guard, said Misfeldt's Bravo Troop — part of the Nebraska National Guard's cavalry squadron — is unlikely to be sent back to war in Iraq or Afghanistan following tough deployments in 2005 and 2010.

"It would certainly be our goal and desire to see that happen," Lyons said. "I can't crystal ball this, but I wouldn't anticipate a (deployment) requirement for the cav anytime soon."

There is ample evidence suggesting that any Nebraska or Iowa soldier who returns from Afghanistan or Iraq this year may be doing so for the final time.

President Barack Obama's withdrawal policy calls for the number of American troops in Afghanistan to go down starting this year. In fact, the Nebraska cavalry wasn't replaced by another unit in Afghanistan, meaning that the Afghan police in Kabul have sole control over their security operations for the first time.

Obama has said that all American combat troops will be gone from Afghanistan by 2014, following the pullout from Iraq expected by the end of this year.

That 2014 date is especially important for recently returned Guard soldiers because federal guidelines now say that guardsmen should get four years off for every year deployed.

Those guidelines can be broken, and have been time and again during the peak of the Iraq and Afghan Wars.

But if they are followed — and Gen. Lyons says that he's hoping that they will be — that means that no Iowa and Nebraska guardsmen who return to the U.S. in 2011 will be eligible to deploy again until 2015, after the planned Afghanistan withdrawal.

"That's what we're pushing for," Lyons said.

More than 2,800 Iowa National Guard soldiers — around half of Iowa's total Army National Guard force — returned from Afghanistan in July.

Nearly 300 Nebraska National Guard soldiers also returned in July, and hundreds more are expected back later this year.

In fact, Nebraska's Guard leaders expect only around 250 soldiers to deploy next year, compared with the 1,250 Nebraskans who were on active duty this past March.

For both states, all signs point to a quieter 2012 and 2013, provided that nothing unexpected happens.

"Unlike this last year, our focus shifts from supporting all the different deployment activities into the re-integration efforts of getting our soldiers back with their families and employers," said Major Gen. Tim Orr, adjutant general of the Iowa Guard.

Misfeldt and the rest of the troops in the Nebraska cavalry have earned the right to some down time.

In 2005, many deployed to Iraq during that war's most dangerous period. There, in Ramadi, they saw more action than any Nebraska Guard unit since World War II.

Misfeldt, then a first lieutenant, commanded 16 soldiers in Iraq.

Insurgents shot at him 92 times there, by Misfeldt's count. His platoon encountered 295 roadside bombs.

Many in the cavalry squadron deployed again in 2010 — four years after returning — this time to Afghanistan.

The Afghan deployment was safer, the Nebraskans say. In some ways, though, it was more frustrating, according to Staff Sgt. Brett Vance.

Vance, who has deployed five times, stressed the difficulty of teaching illiterate Afghan police basic law enforcement techniques.

Misfeldt and many others wonder what will happen to the Afghan police now that the Nebraskans are gone.

"We'll see in the next few months how that works out," he said. "Americans being around ... that's a big deterrent."

Misfeldt and many of the other Nebraska Guardsmen are moving ahead, likely into a future that doesn't involve Iraq or Afghanistan.

That doesn't mean the future won't hold more deployments, he said.

While in Afghanistan, the Nebraskans often speculated about where they would go next.

Maybe Somalia, if American forces assist in a peacekeeping mission.

Maybe Egypt — the National Guard already has a long-standing mission there in the long-contested Sinai Peninsula.

Maybe Libya, or elsewhere in Africa.

"It's pretty much my experience that you get into that warrior mindset, and you can never get out of it because you can't afford to," Misfeldt said. "You know you are going back somewhere. You just don't know when or where."

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