Leaders from 1st Battalion, 377th Field Artillery, cased their colors for deployment during a ceremony at Soldiers Field House held Sept. 28. The 1-377 FA is part of the 17th Fires Brigade and will be heading to various locations throughout Afghanistan.

Lieutenant Col. Charles Roede, 1-377 FA commander, told the Soldiers' Families he was proud of how much the battalion had accomplished.

"Your Soldiers have come a long way in a very short amount of time with their professional development and competence," Roede said before hundreds of Family members, friends and Soldiers of the battalion.

The battalion of approximately 250 Soldiers previously deployed to Iraq in 2005 and 2009, returning from its most recent deployment in July 2010. Since returning from Iraq, Soldiers had to sharpen their artillery skills having performed intantry missions in-country. Within only five months of redeploying, they completed reintegration then conducted their first iteration of section certification on the M-198 howitzer.

In February, 1-377 FA became the last active duty unit in the Army to turn in all of its M198s and began training on a new weapons system: the M-777A2 howitzer - a new, even lighter-weight version of its predecessor. The battalion has trained at Yakima Training Center three times since March, with the latest being for a mission rehearsal exercise in August that "validated the Soldiers for deployment to Afghnaistan."

"An awful lot of training in a very short amount of time," Roede said. "You can see why I'm so proud of them."

The critical difference between this deployment and previous ones is past ones focused on a mix of maneuver-based training and occasional artillery, explained Capt. Bobby Collier, commander of C Battery, 1-377 FA. Collier said his troops are eager to focus solely on artillery tasks.

"It's an absolute relief," Collier said. "This sincerely is what these guys signed up for."

Collier said the training troops received has been more than enough to help prepare them for what is expected downrange, to include weather and terrain differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. Communicating with the unit 1-377 FA will be replacing has also benefited the troops.

"We've been talking to the guys who are down there now, and we've gotten a lot of information on what they've been doing on a day to day basis, so that communication is helping a lot," Collier said.

Roede encouraged those left behind to connect with other Families and to take advantage of resources such as the battalion's Family readiness group. Regina McPherson is one who has already taken his advice. The mother of three young daughters, ages 6, 2 and two-months, is facing her first deployment. She admits to having a "fear of the unknown," but has attended deployment expos, participated in the battalion's readiness boot camp, regularly attends FRG meetings and done everything she could to help prepare her Family. She's also taking advantage of opportunities she might not have if her husband wasn't deploying.

"I've met a lot of really good friends here, and I'm also going to go back to school," McPherson said. "We're going to miss him, but we'll be able to survive ... You have to maintain a positive attitude." The ceremony also recognized Soldiers from F Battery, 26th Field Artillery Regiment, which is deploying to Iraq in support of Operation New Dawn.