MONROE - Members of the Wisconsin National Guard's 32nd Infantry Brigade have completed their three-week training course at Camp Blanding, Fla., according to a news release issued Friday by the Wisconsin National Guard.
The Brigade is scheduled for a 10-month tour in Iraq beginning in April. This is the largest deployment of Wisconsin Guard forces since World War II.
Included in the 32nd Brigade is the 1158th Transportation Unit. The 1158th, which includes many soldiers from Green County, was mobilized for stateside duty in March 2003 and was mobilized and deployed to Kuwait and Iraq from October 2004 to December 2005.
The 32nd Brigade is made up of about 3,500 Wisconsin National Guard troops. It's made up of units in 36 Wisconsin communities.
The units have been training for the past 12 months at their local armories and completed a three-week training period at Fort McCoy in 2008.
Their training in Florida was designed to sharpen and improve skills needed to move an entire brigade and its support units and to maximize their time in training in the field. The weather in Wisconsin would have limited the amount of time the troops would have had to train.
The training also provided realistic field training exercises and includes role-playing and real-life scenarios. Soldiers wear GPS-enabled gear that allows leaders to see what's going on in the battlefield as it is happening. Training is tracked using a communication system that includes computers, towers, monitoring systems, satellites, and other equipment.
The troops will be sent to Fort Bliss in Texas at the end of the month.
Gov. Jim Doyle, members of Congress and other community leaders will take part in an invitation-only ceremony to send off the troops in Madison.
The Brigade is scheduled for a 10-month tour in Iraq beginning in April. This is the largest deployment of Wisconsin Guard forces since World War II.
Included in the 32nd Brigade is the 1158th Transportation Unit. The 1158th, which includes many soldiers from Green County, was mobilized for stateside duty in March 2003 and was mobilized and deployed to Kuwait and Iraq from October 2004 to December 2005.
The 32nd Brigade is made up of about 3,500 Wisconsin National Guard troops. It's made up of units in 36 Wisconsin communities.
The units have been training for the past 12 months at their local armories and completed a three-week training period at Fort McCoy in 2008.
Their training in Florida was designed to sharpen and improve skills needed to move an entire brigade and its support units and to maximize their time in training in the field. The weather in Wisconsin would have limited the amount of time the troops would have had to train.
The training also provided realistic field training exercises and includes role-playing and real-life scenarios. Soldiers wear GPS-enabled gear that allows leaders to see what's going on in the battlefield as it is happening. Training is tracked using a communication system that includes computers, towers, monitoring systems, satellites, and other equipment.
The troops will be sent to Fort Bliss in Texas at the end of the month.
Gov. Jim Doyle, members of Congress and other community leaders will take part in an invitation-only ceremony to send off the troops in Madison.