Anchorage Daily News

Next stop -- Afghanistan. Those were the orders Friday for 3,500 paratroopers in the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team (25th Infantry Division) based at Fort Richardson.

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Fifteen months after returning from an often violent year-plus deployment to Iraq, members of the Spartan brigade were told they'll begin shipping out next month to assist in a new war zone farther east.

In Afghanistan the paratroopers will relieve a brigade already in the country while joining Regional Command East of the NATO-led security and development mission near the Pakistani border, an Army spokesman said.

The 4th Brigade, which melds six battalions of infantry, calvary and artillery, was created just 3 1/2 years ago. It's designed to provide a quick reaction force capable of deploying anywhere in the world in 18 hours or less, the Army said.

But its Afghanistan assignment has been anticipated for nearly a year, ever since Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, visited Anchorage last February to welcome the Spartans home and talk about their future.

The brigade's 14-month deployment to central and southern Iraq, which began in October 2006 and concluded in December 2007, saw fierce fighting that ultimately killed 53 troops while wounding 350 others.

"There is no question that the force is stretched," Casey said then. "We know the 15-month deployments are too long."

The Afghanistan deployment, by comparison, is expected to last 12 months, but that's subject to change, said Army spokesman Chuck Canterbury.

While 4,143 American troops have so far lost their lives during the nearly six-year-long war in Iraq, fighting in Afghanistan has been relatively subdued, but intensifying.

From 2002 to 2004, about 50 American troops a year were killed there as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2005 that number doubled. Last year 155 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan.

The brigade's mission there will begin after a change in American administrations, with President-elect Barack Obama pledging to end the war in Iraq -- where 146,000 U.S. troops are currently deployed -- and bolster American forces in Afghanistan.

There were 31,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in December. But Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. and NATO forces there, has asked for 20,000 more troops to combat the escalating violence, particularly in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

That's where the 4th Brigade is bound.

The unit will leave Fort Rich with a lot of new faces. About half the brigade is composed of veterans from the 4th Brigade's deployment to Iraq, and the rest are newcomers, though not necessarily new soldiers, Canterbury said.

The unit also has a new field commander, Col. Michael Howard, who last summer replaced departing Col. Michael Garrett.

Since launching the brigade's "re-set" late last spring, the troops have grown closer, Canterbury said.

"They spent the month of November at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., and the training there is getting ready for Iraq or Afghanistan."

Now the brigade is due to be feted in a send-off ceremony at the Sullivan Arena on Feb. 3. Since the troops and their families alone are expected to nearly fill the arena to capacity, the public won't be able to attend, Canterbury said.

During February the troops will begin deploying in staggered departures that are expected to last a month.

Last September, about 4,000 other Alaska-based soldiers -- members of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team (25th Infantry Division) based at Fort Wainwright near Fairbanks -- deployed as well, beginning a 12-month tour in Iraq. Track Palin, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's eldest son, is among them.

Airmen and Marines based at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage and members of the Alaska National Guard are also deployed overseas.

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

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