BOISE -- Eight of 16 soldiers with the the Idaho Army National Guard left for training Sunday before heading to Afghanistan. The other eight will leave in mid-January.
The group will train first at Fort Benning in Georgia for a week, and then head to Texas for more advanced training at Fort Hood.
They'll be in Afghanistan for 10 months, flying a C-12 military aircraft that's rigged with electronic surveillance equipment.
Their task will be to provide real-time information about improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, which the military says are a major threat to American troops.
The 16 soldiers are from Detachment 35 of the Operational Support Airlift Command.
