Home » Archives » "Army recalling 300 troops to Iraq"

Army recalling 300 troops to Iraq

Aug-14-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

Link to Full Article
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- About 300 Alaska-based soldiers sent home from Iraq just before their unit's deployment was extended last month must now go back, the Army said Monday, setting up a wrenching departure for troops and families who thought their service there was finished.

The soldiers - all from the 172nd Stryker Brigade - are among the 380 troops who had gotten home to Fort Wainwright when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered the unit to serve four more months. The remaining 80 will not have to return to Iraq.

Army officials have sent a team of personnel and pay experts to Alaska to help sort out all of the soldiers' vacations, school enrollments and other plans torn apart by the decision to return them to Iraq. The unit is now being stationed in Baghdad, one of the most violent parts of the country.

Lt. Col. Wayne Shanks, a service spokesman, said the Army fully realizes the hardships triggered by the move and is "bending over backward to accommodate" the families.

The bulk of the 172nd Brigade was still in Iraq when Rumsfeld extended their deployment as part of a plan to quell the escalating violence in Baghdad. Overall, the brigade has about 3,900 troops.

Another 300 soldiers from the unit had left Iraq and gotten to Kuwait, and were about to board flights home when they were called back.

Before Monday's announcement, the troops who had already returned home to Alaska had been told that decisions on their fates would be made on a case-by-case basis.

Related Article:

Stryker brigade Soldiers sent home to Alaska to return to Iraq - Armed Forces Press Service


Advertisements