Tobiasly’s Blog

You may have read in the news that National Guard and Reserve units in Iraq and surrounding regions will have their deployments extended so that they are in country for one year, as opposed to having train-up and outprocessing included in that year.

While nothing is ever certain in the military, all indications are that this will not affect our battalion. We are still on track for returning in November.

This also makes sense because our battalion is an infantry battalion. The news articles state that this new order was issued due to the critical special-skills duties that the National Guard and Reserve components provide. While these special-skills units (such as engineers, civil affaris, etc.) are brought in and out as needed, infantry units are deployed on a more fixed rotation schedule.

The Department of Defense recently issued a rotation schedule for infantry units being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The plan is for active-duty units to serve one-year rotations, augmented with 6-month deployments of National Guard Separate Infantry Brigades (SIB). My brigade, the 76th Infantry Brigade, is once such SIB.

So again, while nothing is ever certain, we have no reason right now to believe that we will be extended. We are still on track to be relieved of our current mission soon, and begin preparations for returning home.

I have attached a letter that our battalion commander, LTC Gentry, recently sent to the soldiers’ families.
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