National Guard prepares for African deployment with ceremonies in Las Cruces, Rio Rancho

Hundreds of New Mexicans will soon be calling the Horn of Africa a home away from home. This week, the families and communities they are leaving said goodbye.

The gymnasium at Mayfield High School in Las Cruces was packed Thursday morning as loved ones and locals gathered to send off the New Mexico National Guardsmen.

The 400 members will be on a nine-month deployment to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti to serve the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. According to the Guard, it is their largest deployment overseas since a 2012 peacekeeping mission in Sinai, Egypt.

The battalions will report to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, for training before heading to Africa in the coming weeks.

In Las Cruces, uniformed soldiers sat next to spouses or parents, and several held a baby or had a child seated on their lap.

A similar gathering was held Friday afternoon at Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho, where Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Carper, deputy adjutant general of the New Mexico National Guard, told the members “You’re doing something that our nation needs; we don’t take that lightly.”

Carper, added, “The sacrifice we were asking families to make is not new.”

Guardsman Rick Lucero, also an officer with the Rio Rancho Police Department, said the upcoming mission will be focused on peacekeeping but would not provide more details, citing operational security protocol.

“It feels really good to be here,” Lucero said. “(The ceremony) means a lot for our community to come together, all as one, to send us off.”

Lucero continued, “The call to service means everything to me; it’s what I signed up for.”

At Mayfield High, Maj. Gen. Miguel Aguilar, the state Guard’s adjutant general, spoke during the ceremony. The send-off was bookended by Christian prayers alongside formal displays of the New Mexico and U.S. flags and performances of the national anthem and “The Army Goes Rolling Along.”

Aguilar, who has led the state National Guard since 2022, paid tribute to the ideal of the Minutemen dating from the country’s colonial era: “The plough in one hand and the musket in the other; the citizen-soldier willing to do whatever the nation needed (them) to do. … Ever since then, since this nation was formed, one of the foundations of what has made this country great for over 250 years is this concept of the citizen-soldier.”

It is the second time since 2019 that New Mexico’s 1st Battalion, 200th Infantry has been deployed to Africa, setting aside family and civilian jobs for active duty. Many soldiers stood during the ceremony to show they were headed for their second tour in Djibouti.

Aguilar said the New Mexico Guardsmen will be part of a contingent topping 1,100 personnel from three states headed to Camp Lemonnier, a key strategic base located near one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. The small nation borders Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, with Yemen sitting just across the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Immediately following the ceremony, service members and civilians, including children, gathered to tie yellow ribbons onto a tree near the stage to express support for the Guardsmen on their trip overseas.

Aguilar expressed gratitude to family members, friends and employers “who stand behind every individual soldier who’s going to get on an airplane here in a few short weeks and go and do this mission.”

The regiment’s leader, Lt. Col. Sergio Hands, told the Journal the ceremony’s function was to recognize the support family members and businesses offer to Guardsmen while they are deployed.

“I tell our soldiers all the time that we have it easy,” he said. “We’re going to go forward, we’ll be focused on our mission. Our families have to take care of the house, the kids, work … keeping up with the house, keeping up with this life. This ceremony is appreciation, gratitude, a ‘thank you’ for their service and commitment to their soldier while they’re away.”