Oct 18, 2007 5:00 pm US/Eastern
Corzine Discusses Massive Troop Deployment
FORT DIX, N.J. (AP) ―
New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine says an impending large deployment of state National Guard troops represents an overuse of the citizen soldiers that undermines their purpose.
Maj. Gen. Glenn Rieth, the state's adjutant general, said Thursday that the state's 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team will deploy to
Iraq during 2008, meaning more than 3,200 New Jersey soldiers will soon be in Iraq and Afghanistan .
The upcoming deployment will be the largest in New Jersey National Guard history, representing about half the state's 6,200 soldiers.
An embedded training team, two aviation units and a military police company will also be deployed, Rieth said, with all units mobilized for a year.
"We will ensure that our soldiers are fully mission capable and ready to deploy and that their families are taken care of back home," Rieth said.
Exactly when the troops will deploy remains uncertain, but Rieth said training begins immediately.
The units will join a New Jersey Air National Guard squadron already in
Iraq .
It will be the 2,400-member 50th Brigade's second tour of
Iraq . It was deployed there in 2004.
"The fact that we continue to have the kind of overuse of our National Guard is just a mistake," said Corzine, who voted against the
Iraq war when he was a U.S. senator.
Corzine called the soldiers "incredible patriots" who will "show up and serve with honor and go forward."
But he noted the deployments are "very harsh on the families" and said their continued use in the war hampers the National Guard.
"I think it is undermining of the basic purpose of the National Guard, which is to protect local and state elements and floods and fires and whatever problems that we can have," Corzine said, "and reduces our ability and it strains us on equipment."
But Rieth said, "I have assured Gov. Corzine that these deployments will not prevent our state's National Guard from responding to emergencies at home."
The deployments were expected.
Rieth told The Associated Press in September that about half the state's soldiers would see deployments switched from 2010 to 2008. Rieth has said the earlier-than-expected deployments were related to Pentagon policies mandating that Guard troops not be deployed for more than a year.
Since
Sept. 11, 2001 , New Jersey has mobilized about 7,000 National Guard troops, either overseas or in the United States .
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