| Five-hundred members of the West Virginia Army National Guard with the 1st Battalion, 150th Armored Reconnaissance Squadron, will be spending the holidays in Iraq and much of the next year away from home.
Guard members from Oak Hill, Eleanor, Bluefield, Williamson and Welch will be leaving West Virginia this week for Fort Pickett, Virginia.
They'll be training for deployment to Iraq next Spring in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A ceremony for the entire group is planned for 6 p.m. today at the Brushfork Armory on Bramwell Road in Bluefield.
In Mingo County, 95 members of the A Troop 1/150th ARS will leave with the help of an escort from Mingo County Sheriff's deputies on Thursday.
There is the possibility the unit's deployment could be extended up to two years.
The 150th is headquartered in Bluefield with subordinate units in Welch, Williamson, Oak Hill and Eleanor.
National Guard officials say many of those in the 150th served in Iraq already during a tour that ended in October 2005.
The unit is among several thousand WV National Guardsmen who have been involved in the Iraq War.
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