Louisiana National Guard soldiers held their Deployment Ceremony at Southeastern’s University Center on Thursday, Jan. 31.
As the Times-Picayune reported, almost 300 Louisiana National Guard troops left their friends and families “to oversee military construction projects in the Kuwait region, according to the National Guard.”
Along with the ceremony held at Southeastern, another Deployment Ceremony was held at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana.
All soldiers being deployed are part of the 205th Engineer Battalion and 922nd Engineer Company units. Each unit sent roughly 150 soldiers on the yearlong deployment.
 The Soldiers were based in Hammond, Bogalusa and Gonzales.
The north shore units are not the only round of soldiers being deployed this year.
The Times-Picayune reports that almost 180 soldiers will be deployed to Afghanistan shortly. The 2225th Multi-Role Bridge Company, based in Marrero and Slidell, holds around 180 soldiers, according to the Times. This unit of soldiers will be helping build and keep up bridging systems.
Earlier in January, the 204th Theater Airfield Operations Group of about 85 soldiers were deployed to Kuwait and Afghanistan “to utilize their expertise in providing command and control, staff planning, supervision and standardization of all airfields and air traffic services within the theater of operations,” according to the Louisiana National Guard news release.
The National Guard reports that over 1,000 of their Louisiana Guardsmen are up for deployment in 2013.