Army Battallion Spends Two Weeks in Iraq, Then Receives Orders to Go to Afghanistan

Wow.

An entire Army battallion that arrived in Iraq in the last few weeks just got orders to head directly to Afghanistan, where their skills set is badly needed.

This doesn't happen too often, where a unit is deployed to one war zone, then gets orders to go to another. The Army logistics people say that it will take between 40-60 flights to get the soldiers, vehicles, and equipment from the 4th Engineering Battallion from Baghdad to southern Afghanistan.

I'm surprised that it actually hasn't happened more, but it appears more likely now that the U.S. military is carrying out their orders to bump up the force in Afghanistan while reducing the size of their force in Iraq.

I think this is a good move as the mine-clearing capability of the 4th Engineers is needed to reduce the number of IED attacks on coalition forces. 60% of coalition losses are now from IED and mine attacks in Afghanistan, and they need to turn that around.