In August these Teams or Command Units will be deployed to Iraq:

Ten brigade combat teams will begin deploying to Iraq in August as part
of the next rotation of forces, Army officials confirmed Tuesday.

The confirmation followed a Defense Department announcement made
Tuesday morning and it affects about 35,000 soldiers.

This is the first big announcement of brigade combat team rotations
since Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on April 11 that active
Army units in the Central Command area of responsibility will serve no
more than 15 months in theater and spend no less than 12 months at home.

Units called up for this rotation, which DoD and Army officials
stress is a regular rotation of forces, are:

2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, the longest actively serving Cavalry
Regiment in the Army and the service's newest Stryker Brigade, will
deploy in August from Vilseck, Germany.

4th Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, was the first brigade
formed under the Army's modularity transformation initiative in 2004.
The unit deployed to Iraq in January 2005, and will deploy again in
September from Fort Stewart, Ga.

1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, of Fort Campbell, Ky.,
will deploy in September.

3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, will deploy in October
from Fort Campbell.

2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, at Fort Campbell, will
deploy in October, after 3rd Brigade.

3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Hood, Texas, will deploy in early
November. The unit relocated to Fort Hood from Fort Carson, Colo., in
July 2006 after its second tour in Iraq.

2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, of Baumholder, Germany,
will deploy in late November.

4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, will deploy in late
November from Fort Polk, La. This brigade was formed in January 2005.

2nd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, at Schofield Barracks,
Hawaii, will deploy in December.

1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, will deploy at the end
of December from Fort Hood.
Also deploying this fall are 504 soldiers from the Army Reserve's
478th Combat Engineer Battalion, based in the town of Fort Thomas, Ky.
The 40th Signal Battalion at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., will send 430
soldiers. Both battalions will deploy in August.

The 15-month deployment policy will remain in place until the Army
can revert to 12 months in theater and 12 months at home, with the
ultimate goal of 12 months deployed and 24 months at home. National
Guard and Reserve soldiers are not affected by the policy and will be
mobilized for no more than 12 months at a time. No time frame has been
announced for a return to 12-month tours for active Army soldiers.

Right now, there are 17 BCTs in Iraq and two in Afghanistan; by June
there will be 18 BCTs in Iraq, five of them sent to theater as part of
the "surge."

The move to 15-month tours, requested by Acting Army Secretary Pete
Geren and Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, provides soldiers and
families with long-term predictability about how long deployments will
last and how much time soldiers will have at home, Gates said during the
April 11 press conference.

Keeping soldiers at home for 12 months also provides them with the
time they need to prepare and train for their next deployment, Lt. Gen.
James Lovelace, the Army G-3, has said.

Oh I'm not going anywhere. Not attached to any unit anymore. Not
freelancing either!



Will it ever end?