Mettle Matzelle is the commander of a 152-man infantry mountain unit based in Milford that is part of the Vermont and New Hampshire Army National Guard. The New Hampshire Charlie Company is part of the Vermont Infantry Battalion, the 3rd of the 172nd Infantry. His unit’s headquarters in located at the Camp Ethan Allen Training Site in Vermont. If the New Hampshire Charlie Company is deployed, it would fall under the Vermont Infantry Battalion, Matzelle says. Members of Matzelle’s unit have access to extreme training opportunities if they want to pursue them. “My policy as the unit’s commander is I will never ask soldiers to do more than their annual basic requirement. But if they want to pursue different opportunities and do different things, the world is their oyster.” This fall Matzelle says he sent Avard to Croatia to go to a NATO mountaineering training school. “If you’re an outdoorsy person, Charlie Company is definitely the place to be,” Matzelle adds. For young people who are recent high school
graduates, college students or post-college students who are searching for those kinds of experiences, the New Hampshire Army National Guard has a great deal to offer. “It is really a unique, amazing opportunity,” Matzelle says. “People pay tens of thousands of dollars to go up with guide expeditions, and you are getting paid for it in the Guard.” “Army years are like dog years, where every human year is seven dog years. It will take you one year to do these opportunities instead of seven years for someone else,” Matzelle says. Soldiers who go through this training are transformed in ways they cannot imagine. “They are thrust in positions of leadership and responsibility where you not only have to worry about yourself but other soldiers,” he says. “That is a pretty heavy weight to put on the soldiers of Guard members.” When soldiers complete the training offered by Matzelle’s mountain infantry unit, they are transformed into confident, capable leaders who are poised to succeed in any career they choose.
Above, right: Capt. Robert Matzelle of the New Hampshire Army National Guard grows icicles on his face while setting up camp on March 12 in Resolute, Nunavut. Below: U.S. Army and Canadian soldiers near Cornwallis Island, Nunavut. Photos: NH Army National Guard
“Specifically, we are looking for soldiers with experience. Part of being a mountain infantry company is the skills and abilities that each member has. We are specifically training to fight in mountainous terrain,” Matzelle says. “There are several courses taught to members of the unit in the summer and winter time. They give you a lot of tools in your tool box on how to handle soldiering in extreme terrain and weather.” That specialized training has definitely helped Matzelle navigate military and civilian life much easier than if he had not served in the Army or the National Guard. “I think I was able to learn and grow and develop as a police officer, because I had all of these different experiences, and I was only 26 years old at the time. I was living life in fast forward,” says Matzelle, who is now 31. He and his wife, Kathryn, and their two boys live in the Concord area. “The most valuable lessons you are will learn is you will fail the first time. But that’s why we train, so we can be successful when it counts,” Matzelle says. One of the main reasons that U.S. and Canadian soldiers engage in the Arctic Circle training exercises is because of a changing world influenced by global warming, Matzelle says. “Shipping lanes that were once inaccessible are now open. It is open to Russia, China, Norway and other Nordic countries,” Matzelle says. Matzelle’s journey to becoming a Manchester police officer and a New Hampshire Army National Guard Mountain Infantry unit commander began in New York City. “I am from Brooklyn and grew up in Queens and Long Island,” Matzelle says. He joined the Army in 2011, and his first posting was in Anchorage, Alaska. As much as he and his wife
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