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2,800 N.J. guardsmen leave for training

FORT DIX, N.J. — Their official sendoff over, about 2,800 New Jersey Guard troops are now deploying out. Their eventual destination is Iraq.

Soldiers of the 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team start leaving Monday. They’ll train for three months at Fort Bliss, Texas. Then they’re off to war for nine months.

It’s the largest deployment of National Guard troops from the Garden State since World War II.

Thousands of friends and family members bid the troops goodbye during a farewell ceremony at Fort Dix on Saturday.

“All of New Jersey anxiously awaits your safe return home,” Gov. Jon S. Corzine said during the ceremony.

Megan Schofield skipped a teaching certification test so she see off her boyfriend, Prince Hayden.

“I’m going to teach the rest of my life, but I only get to see him off today,” the Phillipsburg woman told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill for Sunday newspapers.

Marites Solano’s 22-year-old son Karl was being shipped to Iraq for a second time. Solano thought it would be easier this time to see her son off, but she was wrong.

“He’s my only son. You never get used to it,” Solano told The Sunday Times of Trenton.