National Guard Lieutenant speaks at Camp Shelby in Starkville
STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – When we think of the National Guard, we tend to think of our neighbors who drill at local armories.
The Citizen soldier is a key component of the National Guard concept.
But where do these soldiers and airmen go when more intense training is needed?
For many, not just from Mississippi, but from across the country, the answer is Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg.
Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Anthony is responsible for overseeing some of that training.
After 9/11, the role of the National Guard expanded, and Camp Shelby, as a training base, expanded along with it.
Colonel Anthony said the facility has played a vital role in maintaining the military’s readiness.
“If I talk to my friends in the Pennsylvania National Guard, the Minnesota National Guard, obviously the Mississippi National Guard, the majority of us, when we did our 2 or 3 deployments from 2001 to 2010 or so, we spent some time at Camp Shelby training. What did that also mean? It meant that Camp Shelby grew the capacity to handle more soldiers, larger training, that capacity increased, and we have maintained that capacity,” said Anthony.
Since the end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Shelby has maintained its capacity by expanding its role to include more active duty training along with its primary National Guard training mission.
