By Doug Harlow / Kennebec Journal Morning Sentinel

Drawing on her 10 years in the Maine Army National Guard and a tour of duty in Iraq in 2004, Capt. Lisa Sessions, at age 28, is a no-nonsense kind of soldier. Sessions, of Windham, commands the 136th Engineer Co. of the 133rd Engineer Battalion, with headquarters at the state armory in Skowhegan and a detachment in Lewiston.

The 133rd Engineers will train in Germany this summer in preparation to deploy to the battle zones of Iraq next year. An estimated 500 soldiers from central Maine will partake in the mobilization.

It will be the battalion’s second deployment to Iraq in the last five years.

The battalion will spend three weeks constructioning mock Iraqi villages in Germany and will help build other simulated Iraqi villages as part of its training.

The group is scheduled to ship off to Iraq in January.

Sessions said neither age nor gender will be a problem commanding as many as 150 soldiers once they deploy.

“The way that I see it, I don’t think that it matters,” Sessions said. “The Army has a saying that says that we don’t see gender. Basically, we see green, we see soldiers and I think the issues that come about with a new commander are issues of leadership styles.

“The soldiers will just have to get used to a new leadership style. For me, it’s all about professionalism and integrity. I don’t think it’s going to be an issue at all. I would like to think that I’m a no-nonsense type soldier.”

Sessions, who has a degree in international business, works full-time for the National Guard.

She and her unit will be going to Germany in July and she will return to Maine to get married in August.

Then it’s off to Iraq.

“Around the first of the year is probably when things will start to move with mobilization, they’re saying early 2010,” Sessions said. “My biggest goal is to bring everybody back in the same physical and mental shape as best as we can be.

“War isn’t pretty.”

Under Capt. Sessions, the 136th Engineer Co. will deploy as part of two separate rotations to Germany and then to Iraq.

Sessions is the task-force commander for the first rotation of soldiers in both the vertical and the horizontal companies.

“We’re the vertical company, so we deal with vertical construction — carpentry, masonry — the other company, that is the horizontal, the earth movers, is sending 50 or 60 soldiers and I will be commanding both of them,” she said.

Capt. Shanon Cotta said the movement is more of a task force, operating in three-week rotations, one in July one in August.

The mock villages the engineering units are to build will be used for training by NATO forces, and American and coalition forces who will be sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Cotta said members of the Iraqi and Muslim communities will assist in the simulation training, to teach forces how to deal with village elders and village population to understand what it might be like to be on the ground “in-country.”

Cotta said when the 133rd Engineer Battalion first was deployed to Iraq for 12 months in 2004-05, the age demographics were much older than in today’s National Guard, but the leadership today is combat-tested.

Today, about 15 percent of the soldiers are women.

“The 133rd Engineer Battalion, as a whole, has had a tremendous operational tempo over the past four years since returning from Iraq and now they are scheduled to go back to Iraq,” Cotta said. “This is an exceptionally trained force with tremendous leaders at every level with extensive operational experience.

“They bring the weaponry experience to adequately defend themselves, necessary to meet almost every adversary on the battlefield.”

The 133rd Engineer Batallion will be in Iraq for 12 months.

Original story is here