DTN News - AFGHAN WAR NEWS: First Batch Of 1,000 U.S. Soldiers Leave From Bagram Air Base In Afghan Drawdown....NSI News Source Info # 2221(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada / BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan - July 14, 2011: The first troops to leave Afghanistan as part of the U.S. drawdown handed over their slice of battlefield yesterday to a unit less than half their size and started packing for home.
When the 650 members of the Iowa National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment arrived in Afghanistan in November 2010, bases didn’t have enough housing, translators were in short supply and chow halls were packed. Commanders were using a buildup of 33,000 extra troops for a major push that they said would turn the tide of the war against the Taliban insurgency.
Nine months later, it’s unclear whether that push has succeeded, but the pullback has begun. Although major combat units are not expected to start leaving until late fall, two National Guard regiments totaling about 1,000 soldiers are withdrawing this month: the Iowa soldiers from Parwan province in eastern Afghanistan, and the other group from the capital, Kabul.
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