Oregon Public Broadcasting

Nearly 20,000 Washington-based soldiers will return home from Iraq and Afghanistan this year. But amid this surge of homecomings come fresh deployments to the war zones.

In fact a pre-deployment "flag casing" ceremony is scheduled for Friday morning at Joint Base Lewis McChord near Tacoma.

This week the 4th Stryker Brigade from Lewis McChord made international headlines.

It's the last full combat brigade to leave Iraq though 50,000 U.S. troops will remain.

Lt. Steven DeWitt spoke with NBC news as the convoy sped toward Kuwait.

NBC News Clip: "This is a war that has been burned into the American mindset for the last seven years And here driving out we're showing the end of it."

It's hard to compete with this symbolic fanfare.

But just as these soldiers are heading home, others from the Northwest are preparing to deploy.

Take B Company of the 51st Signal Battalion. It's pretty small: just 130 soldiers or so. But off they're headed to Afghanistan to provide communications support to United States Central Command.

This is the unit's first deployment to Afghanistan. But it's done three previous tours in Iraq.