After Mosul and Baghdad, Fort Lewis troops have shed more blood in and around Baqouba than any other area in Iraq. So it is with some interest that they likely read the news that come December, when the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division pulls out of Diyala Province and returns to Fort Hood, U.S. military planners don’t intend to send in another brigade to replace it.

Instead, the plan at the moment appears to be that Fort Lewis’ 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division will cover down on Diyala – in addition to the area southwest of Baqouba that it

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The Pentagon’s going to call up eight National Guard brigades later this week – seven for duty in Iraq, one in Afghanistan –  over the next couple years, according to Associated Press defense correspondent Lolita Baldor.

Will Washington’s 81st Brigade Combat Team be among them? The brigade spent a year in Iraq and Kuwait in 2004-05.

A Guard spokesman at Camp Murray said he didn’t know, and that officials there were waiting to see the pending announcement.

Baldor, citing unnamed “defense officials,” reported:

Specific brigades were not identified, but they will include units from North Carolina,

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A retired Army friend passed this along, clearly sent to him from a friend in blue, with the subject line: “And you wonder why us Air Force guys are so confused about Army units!”

It’s a Stars & Stripes bright about reflagging moves that will be made with various units on their way in or out of Iraq. The story includes mention of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, which will eventually be rechristened the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – just as soon as the current 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division comes home from Iraq

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Not all the soldiers who deploy from Fort Lewis are trigger-pulling infantry types. The 673rd Medical Company, in fact, is more the tooth-pulling type – they do dental services – and they’re heading out soon for a year in the box.

Also deploying is the 551st Medical Logistics Company, and the 153rd Medical Detachment.

The 153rd runs a blood bank and will be making its first deployment of the war.

The 551st is going for the third time – the unit was in Qatar at the start of the war, then returned to Kuwait in December 2004 for a yearlong

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3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division commander Col. Steve Townsend, left, and Brig. Gen. Donald M. Campbell, the DCG at Fort Lewis and I Corps, award Silver Star medals Thursday to soldiers from Townsend’s Stryker brigade. Photo: Dean J. Koepfler/The News Tribune

The soldiers who were decorated Thursday with the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest award for combat valor, were, in left to right order in the picture above, Staff Sgt. Mark Grover; Staff Sgt. Shawn McGuire; Staff Sgt. David Plush; Sgt. Tyrese Faulkner, who received it on behalf of Sgt. Jason Harkins, who was decorated posthumously; Sgt. Steven Peters; Spc. Gildardo Cebreros; and Spc. Curtis Lundgren.

Two things: Can you help with the ID of the soldier who received the medal on behalf of Harkins? (Done! Thanks SG 10-30-07) And look for my colleague Christian Hill’s story, scheduled to run Saturday, on the actions for which these brave men were honored.

From a brief interview with Townsend:

He and his wife Melissa said they are grateful for the big turnout at Thursday’s ceremony and can’t help but think how different it was for their fathers, both Army men who came home by themselves from Vietnam.

“There was there was no ceremony, there was no fanfare, there was none of that,” the colonel said. “He never really complained about that … but we all know that our nation didn’t do a good job recognizing the service and sacrifice of our Vietnam-era veterans. That’s why we do that now.”

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A familiar name to lots of folks at Fort Lewis, Col. John RisCassi commands the 2nd Stryker Cav Regiment in Iraq now – the ones who’ve fallen in on what was the 3rd Brigade’s strike force job.

RisCassi spoke for a few minutes with the Pentagon’s “bloggers roundtable” group on Thursday. For a transcript, click here.

The Hill newspaper reports out of the AUSA convention this week that Army Secretary Pete Geren says they can’t do away with the stop-loss policy just yet, despite SecDef Robert Gates’ order to do so earlier this year.

"With the demand on the force that we have today, we are unable to not use stop-loss, in order to make sure that we are able to deploy fully manned and trained and properly prepared brigades to the theater," Geren said Monday during a press conference at the annual meeting of the Association of the United States Army. "With

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Lance Cpl. Jeremy W. Burris

The Beaumont, Texas, Enterprise has more this morning about the Marine lance corporal who was killed earlier this week in Iraq.

The Enterprise includes a link to his myspace page.

He spent a couple years here in Tacoma with a Christian discipleship group called The Core before joining the Marine Corps in late 2005.