If President Obama decides to add troops to the war in Afghanistan, it's not likely a large number will come from Fort Gordon.
Fort officials said Tuesday that with so many of their soldiers already deployed to Iraq and primarily trained for support functions, it does not appear that a significant number would be sent to Afghanistan.
Marla Jones, the spokeswoman for the post, said the bulk of its signal soldiers are already deployed in Iraq and that any addition to the war in Afghanistan would be a small one.
"I don't think we have a lot of people left," she said. "Perhaps it won't mean anything for us. We will have to just wait and see what orders come down."
Obama administration officials told reporters Monday that the president was nearing a decision to add tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan. The influx would most likely begin in January, and their mission would be to bolster the defenses of 10 key cities and towns. Still, it's likely to be less than the 40,000 sought by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.
Retired Army Col. Thom Tuckey, the executive director of the CSRA Alliance for Fort Gordon and a former garrison commander at the fort, said the majority of soldiers heading to Afghanistan would likely be from combat brigades, not the support soldiers from Fort Gordon.
"Are the combat forces going to have communication networks to support them?" Mr. Tuckey asked. "Yes, to a certain extent. Is that going to involve assets from Fort Gordon? That's hard to say."
He said there might be some small amount of medical or intelligence personnel sent, but he did not believe a large deployment was likely.
Reach Adam Folk at (706) 823-3339 or adam.folk@augustachronicle.com.
TOTAL SOLDIERS DEPLOYED
About 969 Fort Gordon soldiers are deployed overseas. The bulk of those come from about 650 signal soldiers stationed in Iraq. At 125, the largest group of Fort Gordon soldiers in Afghanistan are from the 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion (above), which deployed in October.
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