The Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team was upbeat about spending the holidays on deployment in Iraq, in part because everyone knows what the new year will bring.

“Right now we’re in the midst of transferring our missions all over Iraq to our replacement unit from the 72nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the Texas National Guard,” explained Lt. Col. Tim Donovan, public affairs officer for the 32nd Brigade. “So as we complete that process, which is called ‘relief in place,’ we’ll have a formal transfer of authority ceremony. At that point the mission is theirs and we’re cleared to go home.”

Donovan said the 32nd Brigade will move south into Kuwait to process out of theater and fly into Wisconsin sometime in January. The units in the brigade will spend perhaps up to a week at Fort McCoy to demobilize, “to reverse the process that brought us onto active duty in February,” Donovan said. “Then we’re finished.”

Even with that good news just around the corner, leaders in the brigade were taking steps to ensure soldiers had a merry Christmas.

“Our commanders all over Iraq, wherever the 32nd Brigade soldiers are working, are doing the best they can to create some kind of holiday atmosphere,” Donovan said. In Baghdad, soldiers had a Christmas party on Christmas night at the chapel — “just an informal way to get together with our soldiers and the soldiers who are replacing us, and celebrate Christmas as best we can a long way from home.”

Donovan said the brigade is working hard to ensure that the 72nd Brigade is fully prepared to pick up where the 32nd will leave off.

“We’re all in this to make a difference,” he said. “We’re thankful we made a difference here in Iraq.”

Making a difference half a world away does not come without cost, Donovan noted, though he said the brigade is thankful it has not lost any soldiers in Iraq due to hostile action. The cost comes in time lost with families, he explained, and time missed from civilian employment.

“We’re going to give the people of Wisconsin their money’s worth from our deployment,” Donovan said, “by making sure that we left Iraq a better place than when we found it.”