With his girlfriend by his side, David Sowers remembered when he and his Kelly Walsh High School classmates watched television on Sept. 11, 2001, and tried to comprehend the enormity of the terrorist attacks.

"I needed to be part of something to stop the people who did it," Sowers said Wednesday.

Seven years later, Sgt. David Sowers -- with his then-girlfriend, now wife Christy -- stood in civilian attire in the Wyoming Veterans' Memorial Museum and raised his right hand. National Guard Capt. William Patton administered two oaths: one to the United States, one to the state of Wyoming.

With those two oaths, Sowers joined the Wyoming Army National Guard and its 960th Alpha Co. in Douglas.

That's not unusual.

But having enlisted in the three branches of the U.S. Army is, said Staff Sgt. Marty Frank, local recruiting and retention noncommissioned officer for the Guard, who set up the brief enlistment ceremony on Veterans Day.

"He's one of the few who's done all three," Frank said.

Sowers said he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves after his graduation in 2002.

In 2004, he joined the regular U.S. Army, trained at Fort Carson, Colo., and served in two deployments to Babol and Baghdad, Iraq. In Baghdad, Sowers was the noncommissioned officer in charge of the entry to the Green Zone, he said.

Sowers' service in the regular Army ended earlier this year, but he still had some time to serve in his eight-year military service obligation, he said.

So he decided to enlist in the National Guard, which is the nation's oldest military institution -- the original militia -- created in 1636, or 140 years before the Declaration of Independence.

Members of the regular Army and the Reserves give an oath to support the president and obey his orders as commander in chief, but National Guardsmen also swear to support the governor as the state's commander in chief, Frank said.

"The National Guard is in charge of defending the state," he said.

Enlisting in the Guard was a good move for Sowers, Frank added.

"He was interested in being able to pick up health care," he said. "It's a great benefit in today's economic times."

It also will be of great benefit to the Sowerses, who are expecting their second child, Christy said.

While they attended Kelly Walsh, they participated in the Junior ROTC program at Natrona County High School, where Christy's father, 1st Sgt. (Ret.) Mack Riggs, supervises the program, she said.

David has worked as a supervisor and mechanic, and he will be a water purification specialist for the 960th, he said.

Most of the 960th, Patton said, is deployed in Kuwait operating camps and providing support -- "everything you need to run a small town" -- for troops entering and leaving Iraq.

Because of Sowers' previous deployments, Frank said there is no likelihood of him being deployed again.

Sowers works at United Rentals west of Casper, and he said he expects to remain in the area as he completes his one-year hitch.

He does find one curious aspect of the Guard and its stateside focus, he said. "I've never taken orders from the governor."

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com.