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Send-Off Ceremony for Hudson Valley-Area Army National Guard Soldiers
Camp Smith-based National Guard Soldiers heading for Afghanistan
Soldiers assigned to the New York Army National Guard's 106th Regional Training Institute will conduct a send-off ceremony on Wednesday, Jan. 16 for Soldiers departing for post-mobilization training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The Send-off ceremony for 90 New York Army National Guard Soldiers and their families will take place at 2pm at Camp Smith (Parade Field), Routes 6 and 202 in Cortlandt Manor.
Members of the RTI will be responsible for training the Afghan National Army as part of an international team of Soldiers. The Soldiers go on Federal Active Duty on Jan. 17 and will depart for Fort Bragg for approximately two months of training before deploying to Afghanistan.
The Send-Off ceremony at Camp Smith is one of nine farewell events occurring Jan. 16 as the New York Army National Guard's 27th Brigade Combat Team enters Federal service en route to Afghanistan.
The Department of Defense announced plans on August 1 to mobilize more than 1,700 members of the Guard's Syracuse based Headquarters, 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and sub elements in 2008. The 27th will take command of Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix VII, which has the responsibility for the training and mentoring of the Afghan National Army and National Police and providing additional reconstruction support to the fledgling democracy and the Afghan people. The deployment period will be one year.
Presently, the South Carolina Army National Guard's 218th Brigade is performing this mission, having taken over from the Washington Guard's 41st Brigade in May.
The task force from New York will include Soldiers from the New York City and Hudson Valley areas, the Capital District, the North Country and Central and Western New York.
In addition to the Syracusebased 27th Brigade Headquarters, Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix VII will include a Training Assistance Group formed from the Guard's 106th Regional Training Institute based at Camp Smith in the Hudson Valley and mentoring teams drawn from Guard combat and combat support units, security force personnel from the Western New York-based 2nd Squadron 101st Cavalry, the 2nd Battalion 108th Infantry from Central and upstate New York and the Fighting 69th Infantry Battalion from New York City and the Hudson Valley, and logistic and personnel from the 427th Forward Support Battalion at various armories statewide.
More than 6,000 members of the New York Army National Guard have been called to federal active duty for service mostly in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003. Deployment levels peaked in 2004, when more than 3,500 troops assigned to nearly a dozen different units were on duty. About 600 New York National Guard Soldiers are presently serving on active duty.
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