Thursday's Internet Edition, July 24, 2008.

They just don’t know when.

“Nothing is official yet, but they’re giving us an estimate of some time around the middle of this month,” Art Boggs, president of the local Family Readiness Group for the 821st Engineering Co., said.

Activated last July, the 821st is based in Summersville, with a detachment at the armory in Spencer.

About 50 soldiers left Spencer on chartered buses last July 21. Another 100 departed from Summersville the same day. They spent the next two months training at Fort McCoy, Wisc., before being sent to Iraq in late September. They have been stationed at Camp Liberty, near Baghdad.

Boggs said that of the 52 soldiers from the unit in Spencer, all but one or two have been able to come home for a visit since their deployment. His son, Gabe Boggs, was home for three weeks in January. He was a senior at West Virginia University when the unit was activated.

Once the unit departs Iraq, Art Boggs said he expects them to be at Fort McCoy for about a week before returning home.

“We haven’t heard anything official,” he said. “We’re trying to get some answers so we’ll know how to greet them when they get back. We can’t make any plans to welcome them home until we know for sure.”

Once they return home, Boggs said the soldiers would have 90 days before they have to report back for drill.

“At the end of the 90 days we’re going to do a dinner for them,” he said. “Most of them won’t want to come back to the armory until they have to, and they will need time to rest and get settled back into civilian life.”

The National Guard unit in Spencer also was deployed in February 2003, when it was part of the 1092nd combat engineers. That deployment lasted 14 months, including two months at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and a year in Iraq.

The members returned to Spencer in April 2004 as well wishers lined the streets and turned out at the armory for the mid-afternoon arrival of two chartered buses that brought the soldiers back to Spencer.