A Virginia Beach-based National Guard unit has been tapped to return to Iraq.
The 229th Military Police Company will spend a year training Iraqi police forces, Maj. Gen. Robert. B. Newman Jr., the adjutant general of Virginia, announced Tuesday.
The 229th deployed from 2003 to 2004, when it was stationed at Abu Ghraib, a place that became synonymous with U.S. military personnel's abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
The Beach unit was not implicated in that misconduct; one of its officers, David O. Sutton, was singled out for praise for witnessing abuse and reporting it to the chain of command. Capt. Sutton is now the commanding officer of the 229th.
Maj. Alfred Puryear, a Guard spokesman, said about 150 soldiers from the 229th will gather at Fort Pickett this month for annual training, then head to Fort Dix in New Jersey in early August to prepare for deployment.
The unit is expected to head to Iraq in September or October and serve one year on active duty.
Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
with all due respect to donvabeach...
These men and women volunteered to do what they do. I praise them for their sacrifices and thank them for all they do.
Some people believe that we should leave Iraq better than we found it. I assume the men and women of the 229th are among them.
With all due respect to our Virginia Guardsmen.....
but how much longer do our men and women have to be pulled from their families for a year, to train the Iraqi police force?
Haven't our military personnel been training the Iraqi police for the past five years? By now, I would think they'd be able to take care of themselves, and handle all their own training.
What am I missing?
When does it end?