Photo By Staff Sgt. Patrick Caldwell | Lt. Col. Brian Dean, of Salem, Oregon, laughs with Capt. Michael Phillips of La Grande...... read more read more
LA GRANDE, Ore. – The officer that will lead an Oregon Army National Guard combined arms battalion through a rotation at the National Training Center (NTC) boasts strong roots to Oregon and to the cavalry.
Lt. Col. Brian Dean, the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Regiment, was born and raised in La Grande, Oregon and joined the Oregon Army National Guard as an enlisted man just out of high school. He said his goal, as an 18-year-old, was a simple one: find money for college.
“I joined the battalion in 1992 once I realized I would have to take out all loans for my college education,” Dean, a Salem Oregon, resident, said.
However, Dean said his short-term decision to find a way to pay for college proved to be beneficial.
“I have now served 22 years. The military paid for most of my bachelor’s degree, all of my master’s degree and has provided me an opportunity to live adventures most people dream of,” he said.
Dean, who lived in La Grande until he was 34, said he spent a large share of his career – both as an enlisted man and an officer – in eastern Oregon’s 3rd Battalion.
“I joined to be a tank crewman. I served in the battalion in the operations section and tank section while I attended ROTC at Eastern Oregon University. In 1998 I received my commission and deployed to NTC [National Training Center] as a tank platoon leader in the Hermiston Tank Company,” he said.
Dean said he also served in 3rd Battalion units situated across the eastern part of the state. The 3rd Battalion consists of eight Guard units stretched from Ontario to Woodburn.
Dean’s familiarity with the U.S. Army’s National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, may prove critical in the next few months. He is slated to lead the 3rd Battalion back to the desolate desert NTC in August. The three-week training event will be the culmination of more than a year of preparation, he said.
“This is a substantial logistical undertaking,” he said.
The deployment to the National Training Center will also throw the battalion into its toughest test since it last deployed to Iraq in 2010. The National Training Center, Dean said, is the premier U.S. Army training center and it is designed to test every element of a combat unit. The three-week stint on the Mohave Desert is a grueling and difficult exercise where the battalion will be pushed as close to a real combat scenario as possible.
“They are being tested so that they have the worst three weeks of their careers,” Guy Volb, a public affairs representative at Fort Irwin, said. “It is not made for folks to come down here and have a good time.”
Dean said while he is well aware of the potential difficulties any military unit will face at the NTC, he said he is looking forward to the three-week exercise.
“There are no words to describe how happy, focused and proud I am to get this opportunity to lead eastern Oregon’s own through this historic time. NTC provides me with the unique opportunity to have led at the lowest level and then come back and command at the battalion level,” he said.
Dean said as the commander of the battalion he will face an array of challenges at NTC.
“I am putting myself and my organization into a fight against a superior force with similar equipment, better familiarity of the terrain and an extreme amount of experience. My challenge is to outsmart the commander facing me, put the right forces in the right place at the right time for the right reason,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.23.2015 00:04 |
| Story ID: | 160928 |
| Location: | LA GRANDE, OR, US |
| Hometown: | LA GRANDE, OR, US |
| Hometown: | SALEM, OR, US |
| Web Views: | 407 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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