Brockelbank presents local military history to SAR

Army National Guard recruiter Staff Sgt. Chris Brockelbank, at the podium, presents the history of the National Guard in West Plains during a Sons of the American Revolution meeting Aug. 1 at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars/American Legion hall. Brockelbank traced the unit's roots to 1899, when Company K of the 2nd Missouri Infantry Regiment formed under Capt. Arch Talcott Hollenbeck. The unit has changed designations more than a dozen times over 126 years and has been activated for the Mexican Border War, both World Wars, the Gulf War, Hurricane Katrina, and deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Its longest-standing designation, the 1138th Military Police Company, served West Plains for 51 years before disbanding in 2019. Today, the unit is Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 138th Infantry Regiment. Brockelbank noted the armory in People's Park, still in use today, was built by the Works Progress Administration in 1941, and the current unit has about 64 members, with fewer than 15 living locally.