By David Harry
Staff Writer

Chief Warrant Officer Chris Barnaby summed up his reaction in five words.
“You’re not joking, are you?” Barnaby said he asked when he learned the 133rd Engineer Battalion of the Maine Army National Guard will not deploy to Iraq in March.
Orders for more than 500 battalion members were rescinded last week because of a reduction of forces in Iraq, said Army National Guard spokesman Capt. Shannon Cotta.
Cotta said the battalion was considered for call up as part of the addition of forces in Afghanistan, but U.S. Defense Department officials identified a sufficient number of units for the increase in combat troops.
Barnaby, a South Portland resident who works at Maine Medical Center, had been preparing himself and his family for an expected yearlong deployment. It would have been his second tour of duty in Iraq, where he served with the battalion for 14 months beginning in 2004.
Scarborough resident Sgt. Maj. Peter Kelley, who would have served his third tour of duty in Iraq, said he first considered the bottom line when the change of orders was announced.
“We don’t have to put more than 500 Maine soldiers in harm’s way,” said Kelley, who is second in command of the 133rd.
Kelley said he told his wife, Kim, about the change in orders in a “good news, bad news” fashion.
The good news brought an “ecstatic” reaction at home. The bad news is the couple and their two children will not have their kitchen remodeled this summer. It was a project they planned to finance with extra income Kelley would have earned for combat duty.
In his 24-year military career – 11 in the Army and 13 in the Maine Army National Guard – Kelley said he and his family have become accustomed to the idea of long deployments and time away from each other. Kelley, who first went to Iraq as part of Operation Desert Storm in 1990, said this was the most sudden change of plans he has ever seen.
Kelley said he spent last week working with Maine Army National Guard commander Maj. Gen. John Libby to help battalion members prepare for staying home.
Kelley and Barnaby said they had been advising battalion members to get their civilian lives in order before leaving, including gathering emergency numbers and setting up online accounts to pay bills.
Now Kelley and Libby are calling local colleges and universities with hopes that students in the 133rd who didn’t register for spring semester may still get into courses.
Kelly is employed full time by the Maine Army National Guard, but said the change in orders affects local employers as well as battalion members.
Employers who had made arrangements to fill positions left by departing battalion members might have to reverse course, Kelley said. Battalion members who did not follow advice and quit jobs will be job hunting, he added.
While the biggest adjustment in Kelley’s housing is the loss of kitchen renovations, he said other battalion members will be searching for housing.
At least one soldier he knows told a landlord he was leaving in March and the landlord found a new renter who signed a lease.
Kelley said some battalion members have been staying with friends or family or even just arrived in the area, and some sold vehicles in anticipation of buying newer, better ones with the extra money earned from the deployment.
Kelley said there is still a lot of work to do.
“We need to revamp the entire training program for the next nine months,” he said, because the battalion has completed half its annual drilling requirements and all its annual training in preparation for the assignment to Iraq.
Two weeks of training at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod scheduled for next month also has been scrapped, Kelley said.
“Now I have time for all the house projects,” Barnaby said, adding he also used the “good news, bad news” scenario to tell his girlfriend, Kim Valentine, he was not shipping out.
“The bad news is she won’t have the bedroom to herself,” said Barnaby.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219