Army Reserve Invades New York Town

WHEC
September 12, 2009

We have a warning for everyone in Greece. Don’t be alarmed by what you see Saturday morning. Your town is not under attack. We’re not sure there’s a lot of people that know about this, but soldiers are going to be landing in the town early Saturday morning.

It’s a military exercise by the 401st civil affairs battalion — the army reserve unit based in Webster. Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters are going to fly over the city and into Greece and drop the soldiers at the town hall grounds. After that the soldiers will drive around the town in their army humvees. The point is to train. The 401st is a unit that tries to help war torn communities build back up both physically and emotionally. So Saturday the soldiers will have one on one meetings with Greece police, public works people, fire fighters and teachers. Those are the same people they meet overseas. The one main concern now is not frightening people.

"It could scare a few people. We have published it in the paper as well as trying to do media broadcasts and everything else to get the word out that we're just coming as a training exercise," Major Eric Lampher said. "We're going out to talk to individuals about their specific expertise."

People should keep an eye open for the military humvees driving around town as well.

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