The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

July 4, 2008

Coming home: 400 return

Mankato-based guard to return from Kosovo

Dan Linehan

MANKATO — The 400 troops in a Mankato-based Minnesota National Guard unit are returning from Kosovo Sunday morning and will be reunited with their friends and families next week.

The 2nd Battalion, 135th Infantry conducted peacekeeping operations in Kosovo as part of Task Force Bayonet. The Balkan country was a province of Serbia when the troops deployed there in September, but declared its independence in February.

The troops served in a hazardous duty zone, but none were seriously injured or killed during the deployment, said Lt. Randy Belden, a national guard public affairs officer.

They provided security at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and went on various other support missions, he said.

The unit is slated to land at Volk Field in Wisconsin at 6:50 a.m. on Sunday. Their first task is demobilization, which takes about five days.

Families will be re-united during homecoming events next week, Belden said, likely between Wednesday and Friday.

This deployment was at the center of controversy last summer, when the unit’s hazardous duty classification was temporarily rescinded.

That move would have denied the troops $225 per month in pay, and would have made all their income taxable, but it was reversed after an outcry.

Mankato is the company headquarters for the 2nd Battalion, 135th Infantry, but most of the 400 troops are from elsewhere in the state.

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