GUARDSMEN GIVEN NOTICE LOCAL TROOPS MAY GO TO IRAQ.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

PALMDALE - National Guardsmen in a tank company based in Palmdale have been warned they could be called to active Army duty and sent to Iraq.

The Palmdale guardsmen are part of the first combat National Guard unit from California to be alerted for duty in Iraq, though transportation, military police and other support units are already there and a California guardsman was killed by a bomb in August.

``They are very enthusiastic,'' Maj. John McBrearty said of guardsmen in the 185th Armor Regiment's 1st Battalion, of which the Palmdale unit is Company B. ``They are a gung-ho outfit. They have trained hard. ... We've been through the process before. We prepared our families.''

McBrearty, the battalion's executive officer, added: ``There is some anxiety. There is a lot of stress and pressure in the families. I have a 2-year-old son, John Jr., and I don't want to leave him.''

About 600 California guardsmen are affected in the mobilization alert, which in all covers about 4,000 guardsmen in California, Washington and Minnesota who are part of the Washington-based 81st Armor Brigade.

The alert comes as Army combat units have been in Iraq for months. American and British forces overran Iraq within weeks, but bombs and attacks on soldiers are still killing roughly one American a day.

Whether the alert will be turned into an actual mobilization order is not known, but a California National Guard spokesman said officials presume it will be.

``It's coming. What they are going to be doing is getting ready,'' said California National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Terry Knight.

If mobilized, the guardsmen can expect to stay in Iraq for 12 months, Knight said. The unit is expected to leave its tanks in the United States, so its soldiers would either drive tanks already there or operate armed Humvees or as infantry, officials said.

The battalion got a mobilization alert last February, before the invasion of Iraq and while tensions were high with North Korea, but was never mobilized.

``We are not asking our soldiers to do anything specific today other than to understand they are under alert,'' Col. Rick Patterson, a spokesman for the 81st Armor Brigade, said of the present order.

Among the California National Guard units already in Iraq is the 756th Transportation Company, a trucking unit based at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds. The unit was among those recently notified that it could be kept in Iraq until next summer.

The 756th's mostly middle-age guardsmen were mobilized in February, but training in the United States kept them out of Iraq until the occupation of the country was complete.

While the major fighting is over, the guardsmen have had to fit their trucks with machine guns for protection against ambushes, Knight said.

``They're in harm's way every day,'' Knight said.

The local guardsmen, operating as part of a larger California guard unit, the 1498th Transportation Company, fitted trucks with machine guns as protection against ambushes.