Marsmen.org

To the Families and Friends of A Troop
Greetings from Iraq! I wanted to take a few moments to update you on your soldiers, as well as share some information with you.

We have been executing our mission for over two months now. For many of us, the time is flying by. As you may have heard, we have had some changes in our mission. Currently, A Troop is responsible for many of the Entry Control Points on the Victory Base Complex (VBC). Our role is that of a Force Protection unit, providing security to the VBC. While this mission isn't the most exciting, it's just as important to the safety and security of the Coalition Forces and the Iraqi people.

Many of your soldiers will have the opportunity to take leave while they are here and some of them have already been able to do so. My goal is to send as many of your soldiers home on leave as possible. Unfortunately, we are required to keep a certain percentage of the unit in Iraq at all times, and that, coupled with the short duration of the deployment, prevents us from sending everyone home. For those that are able to come home, I would ask that you be patient. We are only able to forecast leave about a month in advance. For example, I will get the leave allowance for March on or about the 15th of February. So the soldiers will know what day they will leave Iraq, however, they will not receive their final itinerary until they arrive in Kuwait. They will be able to call you from Kuwait to tell you when they will arrive in Texas. I will try to give you and your soldiers as much predictability as I can when it comes to leave.

I know there are some rumors out there concerning our return to Texas. However, they are only rumors at this point. The most common rumor is that we will redeploy to Fort Bliss in El Paso. There are many factors that will determine when and where we redeploy. Any changes in the timeline, will likely result in a change to the date and location of our redeployment. I expect that we won't know anything for sure for another month or two, at the earliest. As soon as I know the details of our redeployment, I will pass it on to the FRG.

CPT Shaw

Posted by SFCWyatt Wednesday, February 18, 2009 (14:30:00)