Indiana Guard unit may head to Iraq early - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Indiana Guard unit may head to Iraq early

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana National Guard is notifying soldiers in the 76th Infantry Brigade that they may be called to serve in Iraq in the first half of next year, earlier than previously announced.

However, mobilization of the 3,500 troop brigade isn’t certain, said Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, who is in charge if Indiana’s National Guard troops.

Every unit in the 76th Infantry Brigade has already seen duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The soldiers had been told they would not be deployed again until at least 2010. Last month, the Defense Department moved the deployment up a year. On Wednesday night, Guard officials said deployment could be as early as the first half of 2008.

“You hate to tell soldiers and families on rumor,” Umbarger said, “but the comment to me [from the Defense Department] was, ‘This isn’t certain, but we’re looking at your unit.’”

Umbarger said the brigade needs to be resupplied first.

“We’re short on night-vision goggles and some machine guns, vehicles and communication equipment,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Baron Hill said he is urging the Bush Administration to reconsider the deployment.

“Asking these troops and their families to undergo another tortuous tour in Iraq is asking too much,” he said in a news release.

The guard units would have to significantly accelerate their training for an earlier deployment, Hill said.

“Our soldiers are not trained to thwart a civil war, and that’s what they are being asked to do,” he said. “I do not believe we can ask these men and women to do this again — they are physically and mentally exhausted.”

Soldiers said they were ready to deploy again, even though it would disrupt their families.

“It’s a fluid situation, and our job is to respond,” said Lt. Kent Anderson, 39, an urban planner in Columbus who will lead an ambulance platoon. “If you’re not ready to deploy, you’re in the wrong organization.”

Anderson told The Indianapolis Star that he his wife have discussed having her and their children stay with her parents in Germany while he’s away.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, units in the 76th have spent time in Iraq and Afghanistan.