Donations Still Needed to Bring Troops Home for Holidays

Gov. M. Jodi Rell says she's close to bringing home 700 members of the Connecticut National Guard.

The goal for Operation Home for the Holidays is to raise $200,000 to pay for buses to bring the troops back to Connecticut from bases in the Midwest, where they are training to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan.

So far, Rell said, they have more than $140,000 from fundraisers across the state to help.

Soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the 102nd Infantry Regiment and the 250th Engineering Company are currently assigned to "mobilization stations" in Indiana and Wisconsin, where they will be completing preparations for deploying to the war zone.

Both units are slated to have winter holiday breaks, from just before Christmas through Jan. 2. The troops will be going to Iraq and Afghanistan soon after the first of the year.

On Sunday, a send-off ceremony was held in East Windsor for 59 members of the 334th Quartermaster Battalion who have been deployed to Iraq.

Another 450 Connecticut National Guard troops are already overseas.

Click here for more information on how to donate.  

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