Unit returning to Iraq

About 100 members of a Spokane-based Marine Reserve unit are being called up for duty in Iraq.

Battery P of the 5th Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment, which is based at the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Center in north Spokane, will be mobilized in early June, Maj. Kurt Siglin said Tuesday.

Papa Battery, as it is generally known, has reservists from Montana, Idaho and Western Washington as well as Spokane and the surrounding communities in Eastern Washington. The unit was in Iraq from mid-2004 through March 2005, and some members will be making their second tour of duty there, Siglin said.

“For quite a few (members of the battery) it will be their first tour in Iraq because they’ve joined the unit since then,” Siglin said. A few members of the battery will not be deployed to Iraq because they have recently returned from overseas assignments with other units, he added.

Current orders call for members of Papa Battery to train at Camp Lejeune, N.C., for about four months before being sent to Anbar province in Iraq in early fall. There they will be serving as military police for about seven months, and are scheduled to return next spring.

During its previous deployment, Papa Battery provided security at an air base in Anbar. All of its members returned home safely.