As the Department of Defense places increased emphasis on the war in Afghanistan, a group of local soldiers will be at the tip of the spear.
Close to 85 members of the Georgia National Guard’s 1/108th Cavalry Regiment are leaving early next week to train for a yearlong deployment, according to Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Kenneth Baldowski.
“Essentially, the mission of the Guardsmen will be the training of the Afghan police and military forces,” Lt. Col. Baldowski said.
SAYING GOODBYE
Members of the Dalton-based 1/108th Cavalry Regiment are scheduled to depart for deployment training early on Tuesday, March 3. Families will take part in a private sendoff ceremony starting at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, March 2, and then a motorcade will carry the brigade members through town starting about 11:15 a.m. for a final, public goodbye.
The 108th Cavalry is headquartered in Calhoun, Ga., and has detachments in Rome, Canton and Dalton. It is part of the 48th Infantry Brigade, which is based in Macon, according to the lieutenant colonel.
About 2,400 of the brigade’s 4,000 soldiers are going to train at Camp Shelby, Miss., before shipping to Afghanistan in three waves between March and June.
Though it was a heavy artillery unit when deployed to Iraq in 2005, the brigade now is a Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition unit, said Staff Sgt. Charles Cooper, an administrative officer at the National Guard Armory in Dalton.
“We used to have tanks,” Staff Sgt. Cooper said. “Now we’re infantry, and we drive around in humvees.”
The soldiers have been on alert for possible deployment since the middle of last year, but that doesn’t make it any easier, said Kate Walker of Chatsworth.
Mrs. Walker will run the unit’s Family Readiness Group while her husband, 1st Sgt. Darrell Walker, is deployed.
“We’ve known that it was coming, but it’s still a very emotional time for everybody,” she said.
