Washington’s Iowa Army National Guard unit opened its doors to community and business leaders Wednesday for their first armory tour and static equipment display.

Representatives of the Washington fire and police departments, Washington County Ambulance Service, Washington Chamber Ambassadors, Washington Economic Development Group, Main Street Washington, YMCA of Washington County and more came to the 294th Area Support Medical Company to learn about how the unit trains its soldiers and view their medical simulation equipment and ambulance. Captain Brandon Lindsey is the Medical Officer in Charge at Camp Dodge in Altoona. Since May he has worked as a Patient Hold Medical Surg-Nurse at the 294th unit, spending a couple days out of each month drilling with the stationed soldiers. Lindsey says a change of leadership at the armory, and a shift from active service and assisting in the COVID-19 pandemic has led them to seek out the community’s attention and generate interest between the unit and the surrounding area, “There’s so many assets here in Washington and we have a big asset and I don’t think people have thought about integrating together and helping each other out. We can help them just as much as they can help us.”

Corey Takes is the Battalion Executive Officer for Washington and Battalion Officer in Charge at the Iowa City unit. While the 294th armory has been host to events like wedding receptions, he hopes to open it more to groups like the Chamber Ambassadors and local schools, “So this last year was the type of training cycle this unit was in. They set up their full roll too, right over here on the county fairgrounds multiple times a year and this year and moving forward we would like to have it set up and then invite a group like this to come see it. Because it’s very different from what you see here, you know it’s really small compared to the full actual set up. So anytime we get it set up on the fairgrounds we want to now open it up and have people come see what we do.”

Takes and Lindsey told attendees that when they aren’t doing drill exercises, they are flexible in taking part in community events. They believe further integration with the community will be mutually beneficial.