By Nancy Bargar
Jamestown, NY – The nation is watching as thousands of troops mobilize in the Persian Gulf region for a possible attack on Iraq. What's largely unobserved are the large number of Americans who are working behind the scenes in this country to get the troops ready.
Allied Industries in Jamestown has run a sheltered workshop since 1955. It's a division of the Resource Center in Chautauqua County, providingemployment to people with disabilities.
It's been doing military work since 1978. Greg Bender oversees the operation. He says Allied Industries has not lacked for government contracts.
"It's always been, as the military goes, our government projects definitely go with them," Bender said. "When they went to Desert Storm we made desert helmet covers, 75 -- 100,000 of them. When they first went into Afghanistan we were making some of the products we're making now. They jumped in with the Rangers on that first mission so we've had products going to war for quite awhile."
Allied Industries originally made tent pins for the Army -- stakes used to erect temporary tent cities after Hurricane Andrew devastated Florida. Today its niche is sewing, mostly pockets and pouches, like air cargo bags used to parachute relief supplies to war-torn Bosnia.
"We make the bag that goes out the back of C-130 planes. They came to us with an emergency requirement. They had depleted their supplies and they were dropping 600 a day and we were only making 25 a day at the time. So they gave us an emergency order and we put out 48,000 bags in about 15 months to the tune of $16 million in gross revenue to The Resource Center," Bender said. "It was the largest order the Army had ever given to a disabled workshop in the history of having disabled workshops working on government jobs."
The production floor was built in 1932 by Art Metal, which was one of Jamestown's biggest employers. While office furniture was once manufactured here, today the production floor is filled with sewing machines.
Jeannie is making gun cases.
Frannie is bleeding.
"Oh, that's fine. I'm used to it. It's no big deal," Frannie said. "You stab yourself with the seam ripper or the needle every now and then. I'll go in a few minutes and put some bag balm and a bandaid on it."
Products have left this facility and been in the hands of soldiers in Afghanistan three days later.
"We're not making anything top secret," Bender said. "It's all sewn product. It's just things that help the soldier carry materials. They tell us what they're carrying. They just don't tell us where they're carrying it in, where they're carrying it to."
But there are some clues.
"We went from olive drab to a woodlands camo. Desert camo came next. It's a tanner camoflauge with browns and blacks and now the two new colors are coyote brown and khaki because they kind of blend in," Bender said. "They'll go both ways. So we now are, probably going to start making things more and more in brown."
"And one is to get from that information that we're headed to a part of the world that is browner than it is green?" Bargar asked.
"I'd say that's a safe bet," Bender said.
A surge in government orders is a challenge Allied Industries has handled before. As government engineers in Nadick, Massachusetts design the work and predict there will be more, employees in this factory work six days a week.
Wherever the United States goes this winter and however this 21st Century conflict is resolved, a part of Chautauqua County's disabled community travels with the troops.