Patty Loew:
Our next report is a welcome home of sorts for the men and women of Wisconsin National Guard 32nd brigade combat team. We first aired the report a year ago after the troops left for Iraq. The largest deployment since World War II. The first of more than 3200 soldiers from across Wisconsin started arriving home in early January after a 10-month tour of duty in Iraq. This week "In Wisconsin" reporter Art Hackett looks back at the legendary status of the unit and what it means to Wisconsin.

Art Hackett:
As deployment to Iraq approached, Wisconsin National Guard members from the 32nd brigade assembled in an armory. The drill floor had the feel of a 1950s high school gym. The soldiers were surrounded by symbols of their division, a flag, a wooden cut-out on the wall. A plaque inscribed with the name the French gave them in World War I. The 21 soldiers departing Madison for training at a base in Florida are members of the headquarters detachment, the 105th cavalry. Other soldiers were boarding buses all across the state. All wear the same shoulder patch with a rendering of the red arrow.

Scott Van Zeeland:
I know the red arrow has a rich history in the state of Wisconsin so to wear the patch and have a highway named after you is a pretty big deal. I wear it proudly.

Art Hackett:
Wisconsin's Highway 32 runs from Land O'Lakes to Kenosha. It was named in honor of the division.

Jeff Hongisto:
32nd brigade has a history in World War I and II.

Art Hackett:
The lieutenant colonel is the squadron’s executive officer. He and many comrades have already served in Iraq.

Jeff Hongisto:
Missions over there, people see the red arrow patch and I think they're well aware of the brigade and what we can do and accomplish.

Art Hackett:
Why are they famous?

Jeff Hongisto:
I would say... that’s a tough question.

Tom Doherty:
This is what they carried by that time. That's standard issue 03 Springfield.

Art Hackett:
Tom Doherty of Madison had the same question, why are they famous? Doherty served in the 32nd from 1978 to 1994. He had heard the legends going all the way back to World War I. The 32nd came into being just before soldiers shipped off to Europe.

Tom Doherty:
18 divisions, I believe, from across the country were called up and they all had to be brought together in an organization and given army designations. They didn't have that stuff. They were simply regiments.

Army film:
The 32nd was one of the first National Guard divisions to get into combat taking part in many offensives. They were the first Americans to pierce the Hindenberg line.

Art Hackett:
Doherty began researching their history. He's authored numerous articles in the Wisconsin Magazine of History.

Tom Doherty:
It was called the hardest worked division on the Western front. It had the fourth or fifth highest number of dead and wounded. 13,000 total out of the 32nd division.

Art Hackett:
Doherty says the real fame came from the unit's action during World War II. Buna is on the island of New Guinea. But Doherty says the accounts of Buna didn't match some of the things he was reading.

Tom Doherty:
I came across a room full of neat old stuff, among them were the bound volumes of this magazine I had never heard of before. This is the Wisconsin National Guard Review. The periodical that went out to members of the guard throughout the state.

Art Hackett:
And he began to wonder how the soldiers he saw in the pictures wound up at the tip of the Allies' spear.

Army film:
The Red Arrow division was to strike the first blow and turn the tide in New Guinea.

Tom Doherty:
Here they were small, hometown units, amateurs training amateurs. This is past for a portable communication spec in the 1930s.

Art Hackett:
He says as the invasion of New Guinea loomed, army top brass and the 32nd's leadership disagreed on strategy. General Douglas MacArthur felt the Japanese troops were on their last legs. The 32nd could learn on the job.

Tom Doherty:
It was supposed to be a walk over. The 32nd was sent there not because it was the best equipped and trained. It was sent because it wasn't the best trained.

Art Hackett:
Here is how the 1952 army file film described the events.

Army film:
General MacArthur kept in close touch. He knew the importance of taking Buna at all costs.

Art Hackett:
Buna veteran Claire Ehle of Stoughton served in the 32nd at Buna. He was interviewed in 2002 for Wisconsin World War II stories.

Claire Ehle:
The only really hard training we had was 100-mile hike over the blue mountains in Queensland.

Tom Doherty:
They were told by MacArthur and his intelligence lackey that they should only expect a couple hundred Japanese. Instead what was waiting for them was about 6,000 Japanese who were veterans of war in China and Indochina and there were dug into very complex systems of bunkers and trenches and the 32nd didn't have the weapons to reduce defenses like this.

Claire Ehle:
We didn't have any jungle equipment. We just had regular leather shoes with canvas leggings and heavy canvas fatigues. And we had -- we didn't even have new helmets. We had World War I helmets.

Art Hackett:
The division's commander argued the 32nd needed tanks and guns to destroy enemy emplacements.

Claire Ehle:
We were up against a stone wall and MacArthur did not realize this. He was 140 miles away in a hotel.

Art Hackett:
Told that the 32nd wasn't fighting MacArthur replaced Harding.

Tom Doherty:
He didn't take Buna until he had the material and the manpower that Harding had been asking for all along.

Art Hackett:
690 members of the 32nd division died there. Nearly 1700 were wounded. The battle lasted two months.

Claire Ehle:
MacArthur apologized to the 32nd division. For being so critical, telling them that they couldn't fight. But one officer said the same unit that wouldn't fight at Buna won the victory there.

Tom Doherty:
Here they are coming to mobilization in Louisiana during the summer of 1941.

Art Hackett:
Today's mission is similar but today's troops are different.

Tom Doherty:
Because they've all been on active duty. They've all learned their soldier skills and got their specialty skills. Many have already served there. These guys, likely everyone in the picture was kind of a rookie. Whatever skills they had learned prior to mobilization had been in the local armory from someone like himself.

Patty Loew:
One of those guys happened to be my grandfather who was also a member of the Red Arrow division.