Latest Contingent of Reservists Leaves Garden Grove for Desert Shield Duty

The latest batch of local reservists pressed into active duty as part of Operation Desert Shield left here by bus Wednesday morning for Ft. Ord to prepare for possible deployment in the Middle East.

About 50 Orange County doctors, nurses and medical support staff from the 458th MASH unit in Garden Grove will be assigned to the 400-person 129th Evacuation Hospital out of San Diego to bolster its staff. They are joined by about 50 reservists from the 349th General Hospital out of Los Angeles and about 20 medical personnel from Fresno.

The 129th hospital, based at the rear of a combat zone, is the last medical link for injured personnel before they are sent to fixed-facility hospitals.

All the activated personnel who left Wednesday fall under the 63rd Army Command at Los Alamitos, which has seen about 2,000 reservists from Southern California, Nevada and Arizona called into active duty since the Persian Gulf crisis began in August.

The next unit scheduled to report is the 440th Military Police Detachment, made up of five people. They report today to their Irvine station for several days of processing and then head out to Ft. Ord on Sunday for more intensive training and eventual deployment.