1161st Departure Ceremonies

   Posted March, 2009

The communities of Ephrata and Spokane came out in force to support their deploying citizen soldiers during departure ceremonies on Saturday, March 7.

The Washington National Guard bid farewell to approximately 100 citizen soldiers from the 1161st Transportation Company based in Ephrata, and an additional 50 soldiers from the 1041st Transportation Company headquartered in Spokane.

These two units will join together at Camp Atterbury, Indiana for some additional training before deploying to Iraq later this spring. Their mission will be long-haul truck driving using tractor/trailers. The 1161st logged more than one million miles on the road during their first deployment to Iraq from February 2003 – August 2004.

Please click here to view a portion of the parade.