Pentagon orders 3,100 Fort Hood troops to Afghanistan as part of war surge
By Anne Flaherty, APTuesday, January 12, 2010
Fort Hood troops ordered to Afghanistan
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has ordered 3,100 troops, mostly based in Fort Hood, Texas, to deploy to Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s plan to beef up U.S. forces there.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Tuesday the 4th Combat Aviation Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division should arrive in summer. The 2,600 soldiers assigned to the brigade will be accompanied by about 500 support troops.
Obama is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan with the expectation that U.S. troops would start leaving by July 2011. About 25,000 troops have been given deployment orders.
Fort Hood was the site of shootings last November that killed 13. An Army psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, has been charged in the case.
(This version CORRECTS that Hasan’s job was psychiatrist, not psychologist.)
