A large crowd of family and friends gathered at the Dubuque County Fairgrounds yesterday evening to send off 67 local soldiers headed to the Middle East as part of the deployment of the Iowa National Guard Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment.
4,000 Iowa National Guard troops will head to Louisiana for the training exercises, but a majority will return home after four weeks while 1,800 chosen for the assignment will head overseas.
The 18-hundred guardsmen will serve alongside U.S. Army troops as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the continued campaign against the Islamic State terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria.
