Two armed U.S. National Guardsmen patrol the Utah Olympic Oval, a venue for speedskating competitions, in Salt Lake City on Wednesday. The 2002 Winter Olympic Games start Friday.

Security force has Olympic job

MATTHEW COX, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

SALT LAKE CITY -- Every day for the past month, the ski lift at a nearby resort has carried Navy Chief Hospital Corpsman Byron Rowe to work.

The 10-minute ride is frigid but beautiful. Fresh snow blankets the mountainside. Tourists dressed in brilliant colors pass beneath him, hissing down the slopes on skis and snowboards. Despite the holiday atmosphere, there is nothing recreational about Rowe's assignment.

Until late this month, he will spend each day with a handful of active-duty Marines, manning a radar site about 10,000 feet above sea level.

Their job is to ensure the site is running 24 hours a day to track air traffic over the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.

Rowe spends 12 hours a day at the radar site then remains on call to handle problems, such as cold-weather injuries from wind chills that make it feel like 35 degrees below zero.

Still, Rowe has no complaints. He wants to be here. "I think it's pretty awesome," said Rowe, who views the mission as a unique opportunity to preserve the freedom he joined the Navy 18 years ago to defend. "I believe what we are doing here serves to ensure that freedom endures."

Rowe is among the thousands of troops assigned to Joint Task Force-Olympics, a combined security force of active, National Guard and Reserve soldiers, sailors, Air Force members and Marines from 19 states.

The task force was formed in January 2001, but the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington, D.C., and New York prompted the Utah Olympic Public Safety Command to request that the Defense Department increase the security requirement from about 1,500 troops to nearly 5,000.

"The basic framework was there, but it had to be expanded really quickly," said Army Brig. Gen. James Johnson, commander of the joint operation, who characterized the magnitude of the mission as unimaginable before Sept. 11.

"I don't think any of us have ever been prepared to execute these type of plans on American soil, but it's the new world. ... There is a new reality, and the new reality is we've got to do this."

The task force, along with another 5,000 local, state and federal law-enforcement officials, is responsible for providing security, explosive ordinance detection and disposal, aviation, communications, and logistical support to Olympic venues spread over an area 100 miles long and 75 miles wide.

For security reasons, task force officials would not provide exact numbers of troops participating from each service. However, Air Force Staff Sgt. Jeff Mulcahy, spokesman for the task force, said the Army is providing the most personnel.

Keeping watch from above

To many, the mission has created new challenges for even the most seasoned troops.

"I've been deploying radar for 17 years, and this is the most challenging place we have ever had to put one," said Gunnery Sgt. Bryan Strong, an air traffic controller from the Marine Air Control Squadron 2 at Cherry Point, N.C.

The radar is designed to operate at such altitudes, but as with humans, the electronic equipment is harder to maintain at extreme temperatures, he said. "This is about as cold as it gets," Strong said.

Air Force Master Sgt. Vickie Kraemer, a communications technician, has encountered similar obstacles while helping set up an enhanced communication site near the top of another mountain north of Salt Lake to provide the task force with satellite communications.

Kraemer and several colleagues had to take a crash course in the special commercial equipment that was chosen, because the accompanying infrastructure around the ski resorts was already in place.

"There are no manuals here," said Kraemer, who has 16 years on active duty and serves in the 612th Air Communications Squadron in Tucson, Ariz. "This is fly by the seat of your pants and make it work."

Coming Friday

Olympics preview: Special 16-page section covers everything from figure skating to skiing and includes a complete television schedule.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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