Saddle Up

Twenty thousand families are about to be given some bad news, according to this AP article:

The Pentagon is preparing to alert eight National Guard units that they should be ready to go to Iraq or Afghanistan beginning late next summer, The Associated Press learned Wednesday.

The U.S. military is reaching out to more Guard units in an effort to maintain needed troop levels, ease some of the strain on the active duty Army and provide security for ports, convoys and other installations.

According to defense officials, seven of the units would deploy to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the orders had not yet been signed and the announcement is not expected until the end of this week. ...

All together, the Guard announcement would involve about 20,000 soldiers.

Specific brigades were not identified, but they will include units from North Carolina, Oklahoma, Illinois and Hawaii, according to officials. Some of those being alerted this week have done tours in the war zone already, and others would be going for the first time.

At the moment, there are about 170,000 troops in Iraq, primarily because of some overlap during rotations. After that overlap ends, there will still be 130,000 in Iraq, and the addition of the 20,000 National Guard troops is intended to ease some of the pressure on the Army.

The Pentagon assures us that this reinforcement won't be so bad: the Guard troops will only be away from their families for twelve months instead of fifteen, and only eight or nine months will actually be in theater. I'm sure that will make a big difference to those families.

And the madness continues.