Cape Girardeau, Missouri - The Missouri National Guard’s 1140th Engineer Battalion held a change of command ceremony on Saturday at the Cape Girardeau Armory at 11 a.m.
During the ceremony, Lt. Col. Harry Chakides, of St. Charles, took command of the unit from Lt. Col. Edward Gargas, of Dexter.
The 1140th is made up of units based in Cape Girardeau, Festus, Macon, Kirksville, Farmington, Fredericktown and Perryville.
The 1140th deployed to support Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2005. Soldiers from the unit have also served on numerous state emergency missions, including a flood response in southeast Missouri in 2011.
The 1140th’s mission is to increase the combat effectiveness of the support brigades or engineer brigades at division and corps level by accomplishing mobility, counter-mobility, survivability and general engineering tasks. The unit provides command and control to plan, integrate and direct execution of three to five assigned engineer companies and one forward support company to provide mobility in support of force application or focused logistics. The 1140th also provides direct and habitual combat sustainment support to the engineer battalion in the engineer brigade.
