Approximately 3,400 members of the Indiana National Guard will be mobilized for deployment overseas in the coming months, according to Capt. John Stamm, Army National Guard Joint Forces Headquarters, Public Affairs, Indianapolis, this morning.
According to an Assocated Press story, Omer Tooley, Indiana's assistant adjutant general, said he believes it will be the single largest Guard unit deployed from Indiana since World War II. Members will be stationed in several parts of Iraq with a variety of duties, including convoy security and logistics work, he said.
Among those being mobilized are men and women from the Kosciusko County area. Stamm could not break down how many specifically were being deployed from this area. He also could not say how long they will be deployed.
"That's a question that can't be answered," Stamm said.
He did say the average deployment process is approximately a year, including deployment readiness training, pre-deploymnet training and the demobilization process. The average length a solider spends with "boots on ground" - the time a solider is on the plane to his deployment location to the time he's on the plane to return home - is usually, on average, 10 months, Stamm said.
Many of the soliders being deployed already have been notified and are starting their prepartions, Stamm said. Depending where they're going, some soldiers started preparations Sept. 15, Oct. 6 or 7.
Tooley told the AP there are 975 Indiana Guard members serving overseas now, most in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, about 12,000 of 14,000 members of the Indiana Army and Air National Guards have been deployed at some time for the war on terror, he said.
