By CHRIS MENEES
Messenger Staff Reporter
In a matter of hours, hundreds of soldiers will converge on Obion County.
But local residents need not be alarmed.
Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., are scheduled to arrive starting this afternoon in an impressive convoy of military vehicles — complete with helicopters flying overhead — that will travel along Kentucky’s Purchase Parkway and cross the state line into Obion County.
At press time today, it was estimated the convoy would be arriving sometime between 1 and 2 p.m. and would travel along Highway 51 around Union City and toward Troy.
About 300 soldiers total will be in and around Troy all day Wednesday for a special training mission that will help prepare them for real combat scenarios. The action is set to begin this afternoon when the caravan of about 50 military vehicles rolls into the Dugger family farm near Troy to set up camp.
Several helicopters will be flying in Wednesday morning from Fort Campbell to provide support and will be landing at designated locations as they drop off troops for the training mission. The full-blown assault exercise is scheduled to involve 10 Blackhawks, a medivac Blackhawk, four Kiowa Warriors and two Apache gunships.
Ricky Dugger of Troy — who will be the “high value target” for the operation and whose family enjoys a special relationship with the soldiers — said this morning he is getting “more and more excited” as he anticipates the arrival of the troops and the start of the military exercise.
The military has named the training mission Operation Diomedes, a reference to a leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War who was reported to be a ferocious warrior and was said to have killed and wounded many Trojans. Ironically, one of the landing locations for Wednesday’s exercise will be Trojan Park in Troy.
Simultaneous landings are scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday at the spec building in Troy’s industrial park, at the activities building at Troy First Baptist Church and at the town’s ball fields at Trojan Park. Dugger is scheduled to be taken captive during a landing at 11:40 a.m. at Hoyt Sampson’s farm off Old Troy Road in Troy.
Another landing is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Wednesday at Hillcrest Elementary School’s football field, where simulated casualties will be brought in by vehicles and loaded onto helicopters, according to Dugger.
Designated viewing areas will be set up at all of the landing sites during the exercise, which will allow the public to view the operation from safe distances. Dugger said the community is encouraged to come out to see the operation in action.
The public will also be allowed to meet the soldiers and see the helicopters up close after 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Dugger family farm on Dugger Road, five miles west of Troy.