Seven thousand soldiers from Schofield Barracks, including many who returned this year from a lengthy deployment in Afghanistan, will be sent into combat in Iraq beginning next year, the Pentagon announced yesterday.

Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team and the division headquarters, as well as other unspecified units, could be in Iraq as early as next summer, officials at Schofield Barracks said. They likely would be there for 12 months — the same amount of time they spent in Afghanistan.

"The Tropic Lightning Division is proud to have been selected for this challenging mission in our nation's global war on terrorism," said Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commanding general of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield Barracks, in a written statement. "The soldiers of America's Pacific Division are proud, ready and eager to show our Army and our nation that we are true to our motto: 'Ready to strike, anywhere, anytime.' "

The Schofield soldiers are among 92,000 who will be in the next rotation of U.S. forces in Iraq, a rotation that will run through mid-2008. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the number of soldiers announced yesterday should not be taken as the final figure, however.

The usual troop level this year has been about 138,000, although that has been strengthened to about 160,000 this fall out of concern for extra violence during voting in October and December.

The troop rotation announcement identified only six combat brigades, including one from the National Guard, that will deploy over a two-year period beginning in mid-2006. Currently, there are about 17 brigades in Iraq.

Yesterday's announcement did not include any Marine Corps units, although they apparently will be added later.

Commanders at Schofield are waiting to see which units will join the brigade, but they anticipate aviation units will be part of the mission, said Kendrick Washington, a division spokesman.

But they do not yet know when they will receive a timetable for leaving, he said. Increased training will begin immediately.

"The units are going to start preparing today as if they are going to leave tomorrow," Washington said.

Sgt. Joshua McComas, a squad leader with the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, who returned from Afghanistan in March, said it would be easy to stay around home but then "I'd be like a guy who goes to school his whole life to be lawyer and never work a case. This is my job, what I'm trained to do."

He and his wife of two years, Robyn, are expecting their first child in May.

"Personally, as a spouse, I support my husband 100 percent," Robyn McComas said. "And as a military spouse, you know what you're getting into. This is his job so it's not a matter of whether it's fair of not."

James Dickie retired in October as a command sergeant major with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team after serving in Afghanistan, so he won't be going anywhere except to work as a civilian. Dickie's wife of 16 years, Karen, knows what the families of the 25th Infantry Division soldiers to be deployed to Iraq next year are feeling.

"You've got to be strong if you marry a soldier because you never know what tomorrow will bring," Karen Dickie said. "I was going to be supportive of whatever the Army gave him. I knew he was doing something good for our country.

"There's no time for long goodbyes and it is hard on the families."

About 11,000 soldiers from Schofield Barracks were deployed on separate 12-month missions that ended earlier this year. About 5,200 of them were sent to Iraq and about 5,800 to Afghanistan.

Although exact numbers were unavailable, it is likely that many of those who would deploy to Iraq were among those who returned from Afghanistan in March. But with so many brigades deploying throughout the Army, it is equally likely that newcomers to the 3rd Brigade will have already spent time fighting the war on terror, Washington said.

"Everyone is getting their chance to go, and some have been there more than once," he said. "Realistically, the chance that there were soldiers who have been deployed before this is high. It is not uncommon on the Army landscape."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.