13,000 National Guard Troops to Head to Iraq

ByABC News via logo
February 9, 2009, 1:05 PM

April 8, 2007 — -- The Pentagon is expected to announce Monday that 13,000 National Guard troops from Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma have been alerted that they will probably be headed for Iraq as soon as December.

That violates a Defense Department guideline, for the first time, that aims to deploy Guard troops just one year out of every five.

But Defense Sec. Robert Gates said it had become clear that, "There would be a transition period during which those guidelines would be violated, and which we would be unable, because of the troop commitments in Afghanistan and in Iraq, to meet those goals."

Col. Ronald Westfall's Indiana brigade was informed that it would be among the first Guard units to return to Iraq. This time he will be joined by his 21-year-old daughter, and both, he said, face a very different fight.

"This time, it's different," he said. "We aren't facing the Iraqi army. We are facing insurgents and terrorists."

Paul Rieckhoff, a National Guardsman and director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the Army has broken faith with Guard members.

"It's really destroying the National Guard, and it's ruining that commitment. National Guard folks are going to get out. It's just totally unsustainable," he said. "Over time, not only is this really going to ruin our military, it's going to ruin the lives of these individuals."

The Army is also asking more of its full-time soldiers as well. Regular Army soldiers now deploy as often as every other year, despite a guideline that regular Army troops would serve just one out of every three years.

"The active Army is about broken," Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and later secretary of state, said in January.

In a statement responding to ABC News, the Army acknowledged that the force is strained.

"This is not just the Army's war, yet in light of the scale of our commitment, the Army shoulders much of the effort, serving side by side with Marines and our other sister services and coalition partners," said Col. Daniel Baggio.