Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Lt Gregory Holloway, left, and Lt. Damyan Graves of Alpha Company clean their 9mm pistols to pass the time yesterday in their tent barracks in Alexandria, La. Click photo for larger image. Previous stories Alpha Company in New Orleans: Reporter's notes 9/7/05 Pa. Guard unit begins long assignment in New Orleans area Butler Guard unit heads to Gulf Coast on Mission Unknown More pictures Follow the progress of the soldiers on their mission to the South: Alpha Company on the Gulf Coast

ALEXANDRIA, La. -- Frustration set in among 2,300 Pennsylvania Army National Guard troops yesterday as they spent another day far from New Orleans, doing essentially nothing to aid hurricane victims.

Leaders of the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team were told their troops may not be deployed until tomorrow at the earliest, and even then might be broken into tiny four- or five-soldier squads, providing security to utility workers and doing other small-scale work far away from areas most devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

"It's bad. It's frustrating," said Lt. Col. Jerry Miller, leader of the brigade's 112th Infantry Regiment. "There's got to be a story in this frustration.

"We can't keep the bottle corked like this. It's a crime," he said.

Pennsylvania troops, who traveled overnight in buses and in three-day heavy equipment convoys to reach the region, spent the day doing busy work again yesterday at a military airstrip in central Louisiana, four hours northwest of New Orleans, distant from major hurricane damage. Soldiers were left to recheck their equipment and vehicles, do ad hoc training exercises and a lot of nothing while they waited around their barracks.

Miller said battalion leaders were hearing little from their own leadership -- the 35th Division, based in Kansas -- and he was relying on a boom box radio to get information on hurricane relief efforts, from news reports.

"We're kind of in a blackout, other than what we get here," Miller said, gesturing to the radio next to him.

By afternoon, Miller and other leaders of the battalion were sitting in the corner of a barracks, hatching ways to get around their non-orders. Miller said brigade officials were calling local Louisiana government agencies, offering their 2,300-member sleeping giant for work. They also were trying to call the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal agencies, seeking work.

Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Lt. Gregory Hollaway watches mechanics fixing a flat tire on a Humvee yesterday at Alpha Company's initial staging base in Alexandria, La. Lt. Holloway said the vehicle maintenance is important because the unit wants to be ready when called upon. He said members of his unit were eager to be mobilized to help with hurricane relief. Click photo for larger image.

At the 56th Brigade's motor pool, soldiers again reorganized equipment packed in their vehicles, in case the brigade is not issued buses and is forced to provide their own transportation to disaster sites. They were studying before-and-after maps of Hurricane Katrina destruction, looking for areas that might have been overlooked by other disaster teams.

"We're trying to sell the fact that there's something we can create down here. We're talking to outside agencies outside our command, just to try to force the situation," Miller said.

Miller's boss, 56th Brigade commander Col. Joel Wierenga, said he understood the frustration among the Pennsylvania troops, but counseled patience.

The state's troops arrived later than some others, but are going to be here a long time, perhaps a month, and with their 450 vehicles and other equipment will be better prepared than most to provide long-term hurricane support.

Military leaders in the hurricane zone, he said, "have had to make so many decisions so quickly. At this point they just want to take a little extra time to be sure they're covering everything, to see what they missed in this, to assess where there are holes that need to be filled.

	Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Col. Joel Wierenga describes the Pennsylvania National Guard presence in Louisiana. He hopes his soldiers will know their specific area of responsibility tomorrow. Click photo for larger image.

"We're going to get it right -- I'm as anxious as anybody to get out there and start helping these people," he continued. "I'm confident [leadership] is going to make the right decision and they're going to give us a mission here pretty quick and we're going to execute it."

In the meantime, unit leaders were left to talk to soldiers about basics, such as how their uniforms looked, which officers to salute or whether they were supposed to take their rifles to the shower. They checked the inventory of vehicles they had just packed and driven for three days.

They waited.

Lt. Greg Holloway, of the Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 112th Regiment, based in Butler, tried to put a positive spin on the situation to a group of soldiers.

"Once we leave this motor pool, we gotta make sure everything works on its own," the 24-year-old from McDonald said. "I want to know if the windshield wipers wipe clearly."

A few moments later, in the blazing Louisiana sunshine, nine Pennsylvania soldiers with little else to do gathered around a flat tire on a truck.

"How many soldiers does it take to plug a tire?" one joked.

	Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Spc. William Brown polishes his boots yesterday in Alpha Company's tent barracks at an initial staging base in Alexandria, La. Click photo for larger image