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Local National Guard unit heads for Iraq

Mar- 6-2004 » Filed Under: General Military

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By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

FORT IRWIN, Calif. -- Protecting a remote communications transmitter in the Mojave Desert, Iraq-bound Washington National Guard Spc. Derian Anderson, 27, had one plea for the people she serves and will soon leave behind.

"Don't forget us. Oh, please, don't forget us," Anderson said.

A culinary-arts student in Belltown before she was called up for active duty last fall, Anderson is among the 4,000 members of the Washington National Guard's 81st Armored Brigade who wound up intense training here yesterday. They will spend next week regrouping and cleaning equipment, then head to Iraq later this month for a one-year tour of duty. It marks the largest mobilization of Washington's citizen-soldiers since World War II.

Since being drafted into federal service in November, the 81st Brigade, which includes units from California and Minnesota, trained at Fort Lewis and, since earlier this year, here.


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