Oregon Public Broadcasting

The chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff announced Tuesday that more troops will likely be needed in Afghanistan.

That didn’t surprise 72 Oregon national guard members in Pendleton, who learned this week they will deploy there soon.

Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports.

The National Guard unit in Pendleton calls its soldiers "Dust Devils".

The 72 who work on big Chinook helicopters now know they'll head to Texas in June, before deploying to Afghanistan.

Preparations include altitude mountain training in Colorado. 

Craig Talarico: “As far as what we do every day, you wouldn’t see much change.”

Lieutenant Craig Talarico is the executive officer of the pilots and crew chiefs.

Craig Talarico: “Guys have been anticipating that we were gonna be mobilized. And we train as we fight, so a lot of the administrative things and the way we run our operations here, will be very similar to how we run day-to-day things when we are deployed.”

Talarico himself hasn’t been to Iraq or Afghanistan -- but he says most of the troops in the unit are very experienced and have been to Afghanistan before.