According to a Suffolk Life May 28 story, all 40 members of the Army National Guard unit based in Patchogue are headed to Iraq.
One of the guards states "I think it's important that I go to Iraq and that we should never forget 9/11"
On June 6 they will be going first to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for 3 months training and then to Iraq for the rest of what is described as a 1 year tour of duty.
By June 2009 they will have a new commander in chief and the war funding will have at least until the fall of '09 to go. Members of the Guard unit say they are looking forward to their time in Iraq and understand that the morale of the troops there now is good.
Perhaps they did not hear about the psychological problems of returning GI's as described in the media. If we could reach them we would ask them to listen to the testimony of the Iraq Veterans Against the War given this past March in a meeting in suburban D.C. See Winter Solldier at ivaw.org
Of course, we wish the Patchogue Guards a safe deployment as they join 'Operation Iraqi Freedom'.
