BOISE -- In a few short weeks, many Idaho soldiers will be deployed to Iraq.
Members of the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team are now preparing at a tactical training base located south of Boise.
NewsChannel 7 got a behind the scenes look at the training.
Fifteen-hundred soldiers from Idaho and 600 from Oregon have been living at that tactical training base since August 21.
The training prepares the soldiers for every facet of what they may face overseas.
The training is used to sharpen the skills for all of the U.S. Army National Guard members, from base defense, to shooting their weapons and identifying IEDs.
The terrain and daily life at the tactical base near Boise is extremely similar to what these soldiers will face once they arrive in Iraq in November.
"When they go off of this tactical base they're in their body armor, they're in their Kevlar helmets and their weapons and move out to their training base and it's very much executed like the situations that we'll face in Iraq," said Capt. Noah Siple.
For about half of these soldiers, it will be their first time ever deployed overseas.
The soldiers we talked to today say that the soldiers who have been deployed mentor the other soldiers who've never been.
The 116th will be departing for Camp Shelby in Mississippi later this month, where they will again go through another round of training; they will then be shipped to Kuwait, before making their way to Iraq sometime in November.
One of the soldiers who will be deployed for the first time tells us this training has, in a way, helped ease her mind, because she knows what's expected and what she'll be facing.
We're told the training is ever-changing and evolving, depending on the current conditions in Iraq.
The 116th is expected to be deployed for one year.
