Pa. National Guard alerted to possible Iraq deployment

Nearly 4,000 Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers are being notified today that they can expect to be sent to Iraq in about a year.

The soldiers are members of the 56th Stryker Brigade, which is headquartered in Northeast Philadelphia and is scattered among 39 armories across the state.

The Defense Department has yet to make the alert public. The troops are being individually notified via a phone chain, state Guard officials said.

The brigade is equipped with the Army's relatively new Stryker combat vehicle, an armored troop carrier that can move at highway speeds on wheels but has some of the defensive strength of a small tank.

The Army has seven Stryker brigades, but only one of them - Pennsylvania's - is a national guard unit . It has has been training for three years to be ready for deployment.

The Inquirer reported online yesterday and in today's paper that about half of New Jersey's 6,200 National Guard members are expected to be mobilized in about a year, for duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The moves in both states are part of Pentagon plans to prepare for relief of active Army brigades that are now in the war zones.

In 2004 and 2005, the last time that Guard units were deployed in numbers this large, nearly half of all U.S. troops in Iraq were from the Guard or Reserve.