4th ID Brigade deployment delayed - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

4th ID Brigade deployment delayed

Deployment orders for soldiers in the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team have been delayed, which means 4,000 soldiers will be home for the holidays this year instead of in Iraq.

The brigade was slated to begin deploying next month to replace the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd BCT in Diyala province, a turbulent area north of Baghdad.

But the 3rd BCT, which is redeploying to Fort Hood in December after 15 months in theater, will not be replaced.

Instead, soldiers from 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, working in neighboring Salahuddin province will expand their area of operations into Diyala province.

The decision not to replace 3rd BCT, 1st Cavalry Division, signals the beginning of a downsizing of the surge of five additional brigades that began pouring into Iraq in the spring.

“Right now all Forces Command is telling us is that 1st Brigade is being delayed until after the new year,” 4th ID spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Stover told Army Times. He said a firm deployment timeframe has not been set. “We’ll have more clarity in coming weeks.”

The division’s 1,100-soldier headquarters element and about 8,000 soldiers from the 1st and 3rd BCTs were originally scheduled to deploy to Iraq in September, according to a Defense Department announcement earlier this year. That would have meant a short, nine-month turnaround for those units, which had returned in November and December 2006 after a second rotation in Iraq.

But when Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in April that 12-month rotations for all units in Iraq and Afghanistan and those deploying would extend to 15 months, the 4th ID gained a little breathing space.

The 1st BCT, Stover said, has already been through its gunnery and National Training Center rotations, so those soldiers likely will not be departing Fort Hood for any training. Pre-deployment activities between now and whenever they depart may be local training at the battalion level, he said.

The 4th ID’s 2nd BCT completed its move to Fort Carson, Colo., in June and doesn’t have deployment orders until late 2008, and the division’s 4th BCT, which will reflag as 4th BCT of the 1st Cavalry Division in March, has deployment orders for summer 2008.

The 1st Cavalry Division’s 4th BCT will redeploy to Fort Bliss, Texas, and reflag as a 1st Armored Division brigade, while 2nd BCT, 2nd Infantry Division will reflag at Fort Carson to become the 4th ID’s 4th BCT upon its return from Iraq.

Elements of the 1st Cavalry Division began redeploying last week. The division’s 1st and 2nd BCTs will begin redeploying in December and the 4th BCT, which is headquartered at Fort Bliss, Texas, will start returning next month along with the Combat Aviation Brigade.

The troop strength in Iraq is around 160,000, of which about 130,000 are soldiers.