After preparing for their mission for over a year, more than 100 Vermont Army National Guard soldiers loaded a plane in South Burlington Wednesday morning. Their ultimate destination: Africa. Among them: a pair of young men bearing the same last name one being a local police officer.
Essex Police Departmentâs (EPD) Justin Lindor, a specialist in the Army, is one of about 950 soldiers who will be deployed across the U.S. European, U.S. African, and U.S. Central commands during the first half of 2021.
He and the others who took off from Vermont on Wednesday who are primarily from the 572nd Brigade Engineer Battalion and the 1st Squadron, 172nd Cavalry (Mountain), both part of 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain) will first go to Texas for 3-4 weeks of final training before getting sent to multiple locations across the U.S. Africa Command.