Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1

From the Army Times

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army

By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.

It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

whole text available at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

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I think that "helping" in the above headline should be in quotes in addition to "people at home."

I take comfort in the fact that it when the English Army insisted on commandeering people's homes to use as HQ that sparked a lot of support for the Revolutionary War.

The most frightening thing to me about this, however, is that every day people will be watching this from home, and that the media will probably not really cover any activity in this deployment. Hell, mainstream media isn't even talking about the fact that there will be a deployment.

Any suggestions?

One thing is clear: it's time to mobilize.