Guard unit comes home

Approximately 75 members of the Alabama Army National Guard’s 128th Medical Company will return to their home armory in Ashland Thursday after spending about seven months in Iraq.

A Welcome Home Ceremony will be held tomorrow, March 26, at 4:00 p.m. at Fort Pete Phillips National Guard armory on Hwy. 9 South in Ashland.

While deployed to Iraq, unit members provided ground ambulance and basic medical support at several locations across the country. It was the unit’s second deployment to Iraq in the past five years.

Maj. Gen. Abner C. Blalock, the adjutant general of Alabama, will attend the ceremony and speak briefly to the Soldiers and their family members. Col. John Craft will attend and represent Maj. Gen. Joe Harkey, commander of the 167th Support Sustainment Command in Birmingham.

The public is invited and encouraged to attend the ceremony to show their support for the Soldiers as they return home from their second overseas deployment in the global war on terror.

More than 13,800 members of the Alabama Army and Air National Guard have been called to active duty since Sept. 11, 2001 (9-11) in support of the global war on terror.