LEWISTON – Rene Morin hoped to spend his whole National Guard career in his hometown unit – the one he served with in Iraq.

Instead, Morin will have to settle for spending the first 37 years of his career with Lewiston’s Charlie Company of the 133rd Engineer Battalion. On Saturday, Charlie Company will disband.

In a half-hour ceremony, the company’s red flag emblazoned with a turreted castle will be folded and mothballed. The unit’s 100-plus soldiers will be reassigned.

“To me, it’s the end of an era,” said Morin, 54. “I’ve never been with another unit. It’s a sad feeling.”

On Sunday, the sergeant first class will report for duty with the revamped 133rd’s headquarters support company in Portland. He’ll begin learning a new job. And he figures he’ll begin eyeing the 40-year-mark and retirement.

“These are the guys I went to Iraq with,” he said of his Charlie Company comrades. “It means a lot when you deploy together. I’m losing friends.”

Some people will stay put, serving among the carpenters, plumbers and electricians of the new 136th Engineer Company, which will include people from Charlie Company’s Norway detachment and other people from the Portland area.

But the road builders who made up most of Lewiston’s soldiers will be headed to Westbrook, where they will serve in the new 262nd Engineer Company.

They’ll join other road builders – “horizontal engineers,” in military parlance – in a group more focused than the former Charlie Company and deployable on its own.

That’s the point of the shuffle, said Col. Gerald Dunlap, chief staff officer for the Maine Guard.

In the buzzword among the Maine Guard’s leaders, the new units will be “modules.”

Instead of calling up a battalion of 500 engineers, as the 133rd was in 2004, a company-sized group of 100 or so people can be activated and attached to a battalion from another state for service in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.

The reorganization affects almost every unit in Maine and mirrors changes nationwide.

Across the country, the Army has been trying to reduce the size of units, particularly in some specialties.

For example, one Maine unit deemed less central to the military’s changing mission was the 152nd Field Artillery Battalion, which works out of locations across northern Maine.

It is being retired.

Armories won’t close

Capt. Joshua Doscinski, who will have the distinction of being Charlie Company’s last commanding officer, said the change is expected by many soldiers.

“It’s not earth-shattering that we’re going through a change,” said Doscinski, who lives in Temple.

For him, it marks a new job. He plans to lead a small unit that will be sent to Afghanistan this winter.

“Saturday’s ceremony is definitely the end of Charlie Company,” he said. But soldiers will remain in the armories in Lewiston and Norway.

“We’re not just going away,” he said. “The windows of the armories aren’t being boarded up.”

In fact, the change may create new aid to local nonprofit groups.

With more carpenters, electricians and plumbers drilling here, there may be opportunities for soldiers to lend a hand, said Sgt. 1st Class Eric Richardson, a full-time worker at the Lewiston Armory.

It might mean helping out at a local homeless shelter, working on a ball field or making changes to the food bank, he said.

Engineers in Norway recently built bleachers for the Oxford County Fairgrounds.

“There’s no reason we can’t help out groups in the Lewiston area, given the population here,” he said.

But those projects will come later.

For now, the attention is focused on the Saturday ceremony and Sunday’s new assignments.

Sgt. 1st Class Gary O’Connell, who has served with the 133rd since 1979, plans to clean out his locker on Saturday.

Like Morin, he planned to spend his career in this unit. He was only 17 when his dad, a recruiter, signed him up.

“It will be kind of sad,” he said. “The 133rd won’t be here.”

However, he is looking forward to meeting new people in Westbrook, where he’ll continue to work as a platoon sergeant for the 262nd Engineer Company.

He said he trusts his leaders.

“They wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t needed,” he said.

Similarly, Morin hopes to make what he can out of the change, working in an office in Portland rather than in the garage, supervising seven mechanics in Lewiston.

“I’m ready for that change,” he said.