Utah troops placed on alert

More Utah part-time troops have been alerted they may be called up for active service, many of them apparently destined for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In reports published earlier, the Beehive State was cited as one of those contributing most heavily to the war effort, in per capita number of National Guard and Reserve personnel called into active duty.

The alerts are in line with the announcement Thursday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that new call-ups are necessary as part of a new troop rotation.

According to the Pentagon, 85,000 Army and Marine combat forces will be sent to Iraq next year to relieve troops serving there as they complete their one-year tours. Also, 43,000 National Guard and Reserve troops have been alerted they may be sent too.

Lt. Col. Brad Blackner, spokesman for the Utah Army National Guard, said a notification arrived from the Pentagon on Thursday morning about possible call-ups.

"Looks like it might affect five of our units," he said.

The alerts do not necessarily mean troops will be activated, but it is an indication they may be.

Utah Army National Guard units told they may be mobilizing troops for the war effort include:

• 142nd Military Intelligence Battalion, based in West Jordan and already partly mobilized.

• 141 Military Intelligence Battalion, Provo, already partly mobilized.

• 115th Engineer Group Headquarters, Headquarters Company, Draper.

• 116th Engineer Company, Spanish Fork.

• 211th Aviation Battalion, West Jordan.

Blackner said he did not know the number of individuals who might be called up.

"We have been notified that soldiers out of three units from Utah are going to be affected with this alert," said Claude McKinney, spokesman for the 96th Regional Support Command, Army Reserves.

He said he was not at liberty to disclose which Reserve units may be called up, but 60 Reservists are being alerted.

"Alert of a unit does not equal mobilization of the unit," McKinney added. "Experience tells us that for the last number of go-rounds, not all units that were alerted were mobilized; not all mobilized units were alerted."

Some units were placed on alert status for months, then dropped from that situation without being mobilized, he said.

To place the 60 soldiers newly alerted in perspective, he said, about 1,150 Utah Reservists were mobilized in the past couple of years, out of 2,000 in the state.

"We've had about 150 return," he said, "so we still have about 1,000 soldiers who are mobilized."

Of the 1,000, around 800 are serving overseas, McKinney said.

Also, Lt. Col. Tom Shaw of the Utah Air National Guard said about 60 members of the Air Guard's 109th Air Control Squadron were "mobility processed" on Wednesday.

The squadron is headquartered at the Utah Air National Guard Base, near Salt Lake International Airport.

They were not mobilized yet, but called in to prepare for a possible call-up, according to Shaw.

The Deseret Morning News was unable to reach a Marine Reserve unit.

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