Local Guard soldiers heading to Mongolia.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

Oregon Army National Guard soldiers from Eugene, Cottage Grove and Corvallis will travel to Mongolia this month to help train troops from that country and other Asia-Pacific nations in United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Ninety soldiers from the Guard's Company B, 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry, based in Eugene and Corvallis, will join 220 other U.S. military personnel for three weeks of training in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. The first team of local trainers left from the Eugene Airport early Tuesday. The remaining troops will depart in coming days.

The training is part of the Global Peace Operations Initiative, a five-year program managed by the U.S. Department of State to address gaps in international peace operations. The initiative aims to train 75,000 peacekeepers around the world by 2010.

Ideally, 15,000 of those peacekeepers will be from the Asia-Pacific region, said National Guard Capt. Peter Aguilar of Eugene. To that end, Oregon soldiers are participating in Khaan Quest IV, a platoon-level peace support operations exercise sponsored by the Mongolian Armed Forces and the U.S. Pacific Command. Aguilar, a Eugene police sergeant, is project officer for the effort.

In all, two infantry platoons, each with about 40 soldiers, five trainers, tactical operations personnel and several medics will travel to Mongolia. They will help train 620 Mongolian soldiers and 240 other soldiers from Fiji, Tonga, Thailand, Bangladesh and South Korea.

The exercise will build direct relationships between the participating countries' militaries, while preparing them to manage crises in their own region.

"The U.N. will be able to draw on peacekeeping operations soldiers and know that they are trained in the 33 critical tasks of peacekeeping," Aguilar said. Those tasks include patrols, running convoys, operating checkpoints and helping distribute humanitarian aid.

The 2nd-162nd has been busy lately. In April 2005, its soldiers returned from an 18-month deployment, one year of it spent in Iraq. Some members traveled to New Orleans last summer to help out in the wake of devastating Hurricane Katrina.

Their next mission will be bilateral training with the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force in October.

While in Mongolia, five Oregon soldiers will receive U.N. certification as instructors and two Oregon infantry platoons will gain training recognition as U.N. peacekeepers. That means Oregon soldiers could be called on for future U.N. peacekeeping operations.

"It's an opportunity to see the other side of war," said Sgt. 1st Class Jerry Glesmann, a training officer from Cottage Grove. Glesmann left for Mongolia on Tuesday.

"Oregon soldiers will get the opportunity to interact with at least six other national militaries, which will give them a greater understanding of their soldiers and their cultures," Glesmann said.

If all goes as planned, the participating countries will obtain U.N. training recognition, strengthen their peace operational support capabilities, improve inter-operability between nations and get planning expertise, he said.

Representatives from Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Japan will observe the exercise.