Soldiers from Illinois will soon be in Afghanistan and won't return until December.
About 30 members of the Springfield-based 233rd Military Police Company will get additional training in Texas before going overseas.
At their deployment ceremony, U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, commended and thanked the guardsmen -- such as Sgt. Chad Brown -- for volunteering.
"I ran into Sgt. Brown and his family, his young family, and his young son Colton -- who's seven days old. Seven days old,” Davis said. "Mr. Brown, you're going to miss a lot of that young man's growth the next few months. And as a dad I could not imagine doing what you're doing.”
It will be the fourth deployment for at least one of the soldiers.
The White House had planned to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, but the current plan is to keep a force -- though a smaller one -- in place come 2017.
