The largest combat deployment of Pennsylvania Army National Guardsmen since World War II will begin tomorrow, when troops from a Washington, Pa.-based unit say farewell to the States and look ahead to fighting and nation-building in Iraq.

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The 28th Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which has been training primarily in Camp Shelby, Miss., for almost half a year, has more than 4,000 members, and about 2,100 hail from Pennsylvania.

Their departure marks not only the biggest combat deployment of Pennsylvania Guardsmen since the 1940s, but the largest overall deployment since the Korean War era.

The deployment comes more than two years after President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, and 27 months after the Iraq invasion. The protracted occupation means a continued dependence on Guardsmen -- about 32,000 of them are needed in Iraq now.

"Just about every community across the state has a soldier in this combat brigade," said Capt. Cory Angell, a spokesman for Pennsylvania's National Guard. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team will be in Iraq for up to a year.

The combat brigade commands troops from the Johnstown-based 876th Engineer Battalion, Mount Pleasant's 110th Infantry unit and Scranton's 109th Infantry. The infantry units include smaller companies from Greensburg, Indiana, Pa., and Waynesburg. The non-Pennsylvania troops come from 25 other states and Puerto Rico.

Gov. Ed Rendell plans to attend the two-day going-away party, which starts today with rock concerts and an awards ceremony, and ends tomorrow with a 10 a.m. departure service. During the departure ceremony, all of the soldiers will take to Camp Shelby's parade field, saying goodbye in mass formation.

For the next two weeks, the soldiers will board cargo planes that will carry them to a base in Kuwait. From there, the troops will begin moving into Iraq. Their destination is central Iraq, the Anbar province, where they will conduct raids, secure roads, meet with Iraq's security forces, and build sewer lines and schools.

The troops have received "theater immersion" training, Angell said, meant to simulate urban warfare in Iraq's cities and villages. The climate, terrain and size of the camp -- at 210 square miles, it is nearly four times larger than the city of Pittsburgh -- make Camp Shelby an ideal spot for such training. The camp is in southern Mississippi, about 80 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

An advance squad of combat instructors and other Guardsmen from the 2nd Brigade already has been sent to Iraq.