45th Infantry Prepares for Deployment
By: Allison Woods
Updated: February 29, 2008
Oklahomas 45th Infantry Brigade is at Fort Chaffee preparing for deployment to Iraq. Soldiers will train for a month to prepare for the deployment. The soldiers will train with several devices, including the Blue Tracker, a satellite tracking system which helps soldiers locate objects and guides them through battlefields. Soldier James Porter is preparing for his second deployment to Iraq, and he says the Blue Tracker is a key tool.
"We actually saved about five guys lives with this system calling helicopter Medivac," he says.
The soldiers will also receive combat first-aid training. This will help soldiers assist medical personnel. Sergeant Chad Ellison says this training will help save lives.
Twenty-two hundred soldiers are training on this equipment at Fort Chaffee, and preparing for deployment, but Sergeant Ellison says hes not sure when theyll ship out.
"When we get a set of orders to go, we go," he says.
If the brigade is mobilized, it will be the largest deployment of Oklahomas citizen soldiers since the Korean War.
