Guard Unit Starts to Gear Up Just in Case : Channel Islands: The air base commander has put 1,400 personnel on a ‘heightened state of awareness’ for a possible call to the Mideast.

The base commander of the Air National Guard unit at Point Mugu has put 1,400 active duty and reserve personnel on a “heightened state of awareness” in preparation for a possible call to the Middle East.

“We have been advising our people to get their personal affairs in order,” said Col. Daniel H. Pemberton, commander of the Channel Islands Air National Guard Base adjacent to Point Mugu. “We have been getting our recall rosters in order and we have been taking inventory of all our personnel and supplies.”

Pemberton said the National Guard unit, which includes a fleet of 16 C-130 Hercules transport planes, has not been put on any special standby status or heightened state of readiness. “But prudence dictates that we gear up for what might be coming,” he said.

Over the weekend, President Bush began preparing to act on a Pentagon request for permission to call up as many as 150,000 members of the National Guard and other reserve units to meet critical shortages of support troops in the Persian Gulf.

Pentagon officials have said they cannot sustain the current buildup of troops in Saudi Arabia without reserves. U.S. military units rely heavily on reserves for support services such as transporting supplies, providing medical treatment and maintaining communications.

The principal mission of the Channel Islands guard unit, which moved from Van Nuys in March, is to haul military cargo. The base’s 146th Tactical Airlift Wing has 16 C-130 Hercules transport planes designed to carry military supplies and troops relatively short distances.

Pemberton said 12 of these transport planes are ready for operation and the others are in maintenance or elsewhere. “Our airplanes are not designed to take the heavy stuff from one continent to another,” he said. “They are designed to take supplies from one country to another.”

The Channel Islands base also has a military police unit, a civilian engineering unit for emergency construction, a 170-member air medical evacuation unit and an air medical tactical hospital of about 50 personnel qualified to administer medical aid in the field.

Pemberton confirmed that a few specialists from the National Guard base have volunteered to join Operation Desert Shield, the designation of the Middle East military buildup. He declined to say how many volunteered, what specialties they have or where they were sent.

Combat operations are not new to the 146th Tactical Airlift Wing, which provided air support in the Korean and Vietnam wars. More recently, a portion of the wing was used in the military mission to topple Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega.

The guard unit moved 1,647 passengers and more than 363 tons of cargo in that operation, which won high praise from other U.S. forces in Panama for grueling hours in the air and missions flown under “lights-out” conditions that included some blackout landings.

The Channel Islands base has 320 full-time members and about 1,100 reservists who report to duty on scheduled weekends and go on training missions once a year.

“We’ve gotten a lot of calls from our troops, asking us when they should be ready,” said Lt. David L. Corrick, a base spokesman. “We tell them they should be ready to go at any time.”

Pemberton said he has told National Guard members to make sure they have direct deposit on their military paychecks and to line up child care. “A little forethought can go a long way in these situations,” he said.

Large-scale mobilization of National Guard units or reserves is politically sensitive because it disrupts lives of individuals, families and communities. During the Vietnam War, President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to minimize the use of reserves and guard units because heavy casualties in any unit would hit disproportionately hard in a particular area.

Most of the members of the Channel Islands Air National Guard base live in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

MIDEAST CRISIS U.S. planes are now using the United Arab Emirates as a base, while the Soviet Union hints that it might act as a go-between. A1