| About eight Calhoun boys will reportedly be going to Iraq with Spencer's National Guard 821st Engineering Company, formerly the 1092nd Engineers.
The Spencer unit will be leaving on Saturday, July 21 for pre-deployment training at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.
The community can say goodbye to members of the National Guard in Spencer this weekend.
This Sunday, during monthly drill exercises at the Spencer armory, the community is invited to a send-off from 2-4 p.m. The detachment's Family Support Group is sponsoring the event.
Most of the members of the local detachment are from Roane, Calhoun and Jackson counties.
The 821st Engineering Company has 116 members in Summersville and another 55 at the Spencer detachment.
This is the second call-up to Iraq for the local guard unit.
The former Spencer unit was known as Company B of the 1092nd Combat Engineering Battalion. They left Spencer in February 2003. After about two months at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the unit went to Iraq where they spent about a year, for a total deployment of approximately 14 months.
This time, the soldiers are expected to be in Iraq for 12-18 months, although that could be extended.
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