Iowa reservists head to Korea

Four dozen Des Moines-based Army Reservists are packed up and leaving thismorning for an overseas mission — not to Kosovo but Korea. The two-weekdeployment is an annual exercise designed to train, test and demonstrate U-Sand Korean military capability.Major Richard Tremain is spokesman for the unit and is also among the 48troops going on the mission. Tremain says their duties will involve a widerange of training, including how to evacuate refugees.Tremain, who is a public affairs officer, will be packing a machine gun anda video camera to tape the action for a training video.Most of the 48 Reservists are from central Iowa but others are from Kansas,Minnesota and Missouri. He says about 20 percent of the unit is female.