Fort Carson brigade ready to move out

Combat unit heading to region south of Baghdad

By Tom Roeder, The Gazette

Published August 21, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The 2nd Brigade Combat Team will start leaving Fort Carson for war next week with more clarity on where they will fight.

But fast-moving changes in southern Iraq will still keep commanders on their toes and leave soldiers wondering where they'll sleep for the next year.

The 4th Infantry Division brigade held a farewell ceremony Wednesday morning. Leaders said the troops are ready for anything they'll face in Iraq.

That's a good thing, because the unit is heading to a region south of Baghdad where international troops from Poland and Georgia are going home.

The exacts details of the deployment remain a work in progress, but the unit has been told it will settle into a mostly Shiite region near that sect's holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

The mission will be to back up and train Iraqi army units that have taken the lead in securing the region, which has been one of the calmer areas of Iraq.

Soldiers at the event said they're not happy to be going, but are anxious to get to Iraq.

"They want to get on with business," Col. Butch Kievenaar said after the ceremony.

The brigade was moved to Colorado in 2006 from Fort Hood, Texas, and as recently as a year ago was a shell of a unit with just 60 percent of the soldiers it needed to go to war.

In the past year, the brigade has been reborn, with new soldiers arriving amid a torrent of training. About half the troops in the 3,800-soldier brigade are combat veterans. Others are newcomers.

"Not just a few butterflies, a belly full," said Daniel Burgener, who is getting ready to raise his toddler daughter for the next year while his wife, Sgt. Stella Burgener, serves in Iraq .

Spc. Michael Blanton was bracing to leave his wife and three children for the uncertain year ahead, his first in Iraq.

"You don't let worry get in the way," he said. "You've got to be pumped up."

Command Sgt. Maj. Fred Thompson said that after long months of training, soldiers want to move ahead.

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