| Within the next year, more than 2,000 members of the West Virginia Air and Army National Guard will be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The President's goal is to do more in Afghanistan and to try to work our way out of Iraq," says state Adjutant General Allen Tackett, who recently visited the state's Guard members working in Afghanistan.
"West Virginians should be extremely proud of the professionalism that we have in this organization," General Tackett said.
There are 500 West Virginia National Guard members overseas, a number that will be going up by hundreds more.
The next deployment for the West Virginia Army Guard involves 550 members of the 150th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. They will spend a year in Iraq.
Several thousand National Guardsmen and state reservists have served in Iraq.
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