TodayGuard unit alerted for possible deployment
Print
Share
Email to a friend
Add This
Article RatingAbout 1,200 more Pennsylvania National Guard troops are being told they may go to Iraq within a year.
Members of the 28th Combat Aviation Brigade, headquartered at Fort Indiantown Gap in Annville, received an alert order a couple months ago, said Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver, a Guard spokesman.
The new call-ups are in addition to 4,000 Pennsylvania soldiers with the 56th Stryker Brigade who were told in October they could be sent to Iraq within a year.
Cleaver said this is only an alert order to step up preparation for possible mobilization. Deployment may or may not happen depending on the outcome of the presidential election and other “dynamics” driving manpower needs at the front, he added.
“Alert orders may never mature to mobilization orders,” Cleaver explained. He added the 28th brigade would likely leave in early 2009, a few months after the Stryker Brigade.
First full deployment
If both forces go, it would be the largest deployment of Pennsylvania National Guard troops into combat since World War II and the first time the entire 28th Brigade would deploy overseas as a whole unit, Cleaver said. Prior to this, elements of the 28th Brigade have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
He explained how the 28th Brigade would join soldiers from nine other states to create a force of 2,700 soldiers at the air base in Balad, north of Baghdad. Its mission would be to fly and maintain transport, heavy-lift and attack helicopters.
Cleaver said the 28th Brigade trains on Blackhawk, Chinook and Apache helicopters. It is not yet known whether the unit will transport its own helicopters to the theater of operation or use helicopters already stationed in Iraq.
While most of the maintenance and ground support troops are from Pennsylvania, aviators by nature have specialty skills and are widely distributed around the country, Cleaver said.
He added it is routine for the Pennsylvania National Guard to ask other states for forces and for Pennsylvania units to join with National Guard units in other states forming units heading out on a deployment.
Issuing the alert order now gives 28th Brigade members ample time to work with family and employers to settle matters and prepare for possible deployment, Cleaver said. Guard counselors have already met with families to brief them on what to expect and what services are available.
He added the brigade plans to refocus its monthly training and “polish baseline soldier skills” essential to the mission during its longer training period in May. Cleaver said the 28th Brigade would likely receive training at some other base prior to deployment overseas, but details as not as yet known.
Stepped up monthly training enables the National Guard to comply with recent directives by senior military leadership to shorten deployments to one year, Cleaver said. “Soldiers would have a year to learn the essential skills required to go to war.”
