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5 Guard brigades alerted for deployment

Five Army National Guard brigades have been alerted for deployment in the summer of 2009 to support Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, the Defense Department announced Monday.

The announcement affects about 15,000 soldiers, and is part of the regular rotation of forces.

The brigades alerted for duty in Iraq are:

• 32nd Brigade Combat Team, Wisconsin National Guard

• 41st BCT, Oregon National Guard

• 155th BCT, Mississippi National Guard

These 8,000 soldiers will conduct a security force mission and they will be assigned tasks to ensure freedom of movement and continuity of operations in theater. Those tasks include base defense and route security in Iraq and Kuwait.

The brigades alerted for duty in Afghanistan are:

• 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Georgia National Guard

• 53rd IBCT, Florida National Guard

The 48th IBCT will deploy to train Afghan National Security Forces, while the 53rd IBCT will assume battle space in Afghanistan and perform full spectrum operations. About 7,000 soldiers belong to these two brigades.

All five brigades are not scheduled to deploy until summer 2009, but they are being alerted for duty now to give them time to prepare for the deployment.

Eight other Guard brigades were alerted for duty on Oct. 19. Seven brigades will deploy to Iraq, and the eighth to Afghanistan. That alert affected more than 21,000 soldiers, and they are scheduled to begin deploying in summer 2008 in rotations that will continue into early 2009.

In April, more than 12,000 other soldiers from four Guard brigades were alerted for duty, and those soldiers will begin deploying in December in rotations to continue into 2008.

The active Army, stretched by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, already has 18 brigade combat teams in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. However, plans announced by President Bush and his top military commanders call for the number of BCTs in Iraq to fall to 15 next year as the “surge” of five BCTs comes to an end.

The demand for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the supply, making it critical to use the Guard and Reserve to meet the needs of commanders in theater, but a Pentagon announcement in January calls for Guard and Reserve troops to be mobilized for no more than 12 months at a time, which means soldiers must complete as much individual and small-unit training as possible before they leave for their mobilization stations.