Junior Bryan Dykstra said when he joined the Army he thought the chances of being deployed were slim. But as the years passed by, he expected it more and more.

“I knew it was coming sooner or later,” he said.

After recent developments, it looks like it will be coming sooner rather than later.

The U.S. Department of Defense announced Monday its alert of the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 32nd Brigade Combat Team to deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, starting the summer of 2009.

There are 3,450 soldiers authorized in the 32nd Brigade and has units in 36 Wisconsin communities, said Tim Donovan, director of public affairs for the National Guard. This announcement affects two other brigades from the National Guard: Oregon’s 41st and Mississippi’s 155th, according to a Department of Defense press release.

“Unit deployments reflect the continued commitment of the United States to the security of the Iraqi people,” the release said. “These brigades will have a security force mission and be assigned tasks which will assure freedom of movement and continuity of operations in the country. Those tasks will include base defense and route security in Iraq and Kuwait.”

Donovan said while this is only an alert, there will be some minor changes.

“The intensity of the units’ weekend drills will increase. A normal weekend drill is normally Saturday and Sunday. They’ll probably add some Fridays to that mix eventually,” he said. “They’ll just continue whatever they can do to train effectively for what we believe will be a mission in Iraq.”

Donovan said the Wisconsin National Guard has had troops in Iraq continuously since May 2003.

Dykstra, a kinesiology major who would deal with medics for the military, said he heard the news from his brother, a soldier in Iraq.

“I knew about this before they even announced it, so I was a little more prepared for it than anyone else,” he said. “My brother is talking about switching to my unit, so I’ll be deployed with him, in which case I won’t mind at all.”

Dykstra said as of now the announcement is as permanent as it gets, but the presidential election in 2008 might change things.

“I’m not exactly expecting to go over right now,” he said. “It’s on my mind but I’m not worrying about it until it gets closer to that time. I’m going to just keep doing what I’m doing for now.”