CONTACT: LTC Eric Durr

FOR RELEASE: Tuesday, Feb 05, 2008

ON SITE: LT Ronald Benavides

WHO:

4th Finance Detachment

WHAT:

Army National Guard Soldiers

WHEN:

February 5, 2008

WHERE:

Whitestone Armory, Queens

More members of the New York National Guard are mobilizing for service overseas to support Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. More than two dozen Citizen Soldiers from the New York Army National Guard’s 4th Finance Detachment mobilized and departed today from their Whitestone Armory in Queens for predeployment training. Soldiers assigned to the unit conducted a private send-off ceremony on Saturday, February 2 for family members and fellow Soldiers prior to the unit departure. The Soldiers began their Federal Active Duty on February 2 and departed for Camp Atterbury, Indiana, then on to Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin for additional finance training prior to deploying to Afghanistan. The unit is scheduled to be in Afghanistan for up to ten months after their two months of training. Members of the 4th Finance will be responsible for providing general finance management and will be attached to an active Army unit that is currently deployed to Afghanistan. The U.S. Army Reserve Pay Center (UPC) at Fort McCoy provides the required finance training for all deploying Army Reserve and Army National Guard finance detachments. This specialized training serves as refresher courses for Soldiers on current financial management issues like combat pay, Army Knowledge Online (AKO) records access, disbursing operations, accounting and active- component pay verses Reserve and National Guard pay. Standardized courses will be taught equally to Soldiers of all ranks. The highlight of the Center is a mock office and disbursement center. It was designed to replicate in-theater finance offices with a vault, a kiosk and three cashier cages for accounts payable and military pay. Fort McCoy began finance training in 1996, when Soldiers were being deployed to Bosnia. The 4th Finance Detachment will learn to serve customers and provide support utilizing in-theater policies and standard operating procedures. More than 6,000 members of the New York Army National Guard have been called to federal active duty for service mostly in Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003. Deployment levels peaked in 2004, when more than 3,500 troops assigned to nearly a dozen different units were on duty. Most recently, more than 1,700 Soldiers from the 27th Brigade Combat Team, based in Syracuse, N.Y. and with Soldiers from across the state mobilized for deployment to Afghanistan later this spring. Nearly 2,000 New York Army National Guard Soldiers are presently serving on active duty.