State Guardsmen Ready for Battle
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LATHAM — More than 1,200 members of the New York Army National Guard’s 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team will train for three weeks at Fort Drum to prepare for deployment to Afghanistan next year, officials said today.
The task force from New York will include soldiers from New York City, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Binghamton, and the Capital and Hudson Valley regions, a commander of the 27th Brigade Combat Team, Colonel Brian Balfe, said. The units will converge at the northern New York Army post beginning October 6.
In Afghanistan, the team will help train, mentor, and support the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police and assist with reconstruction. The unit will replace the South Carolina Army National Guard’s 218th Brigade.
More than 6,000 members of the New York Army National Guard have been called to active duty for service mostly in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003. Deployment levels peaked in 2004, when more than 3,500 troops from New York were assigned to nearly a dozen different units. About 500 New York National Guard soldiers are presently serving on active duty.