Whether or not individual Soldiers want to be deployed (especially in the National Guard since it's so state-centric) has nothing to do with rotational schedules, which in the US Army are dictated by DA based on requirements coming in from the joint and unified commands (i. e. CENTCOM.) FORSCOM takes those mission taskings and finds the correct mix of units that are not currently deployed and issues the approproate deployment orders. I may not particularly agree with putting civilian police on the gates, but it does, taken as a whole, free up MPs for deployable units. The US Army is in the middle of a major plus-up of its wartime deployment system. MPs, Civil Affairs, and so forth, are a major, major factor in our current fights in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once a unit (any unit) has received a warning order for deployment, nobody is going anywhere unless it's for derogatory/punative reasons or ETS unless the unit has been stop-lossed. Even Chapter discharges can get put in abeyance depending on the circumstances. razorguns, I take it you're in the CA National Guard. They have their own manpower needs and every unit has to maintain their end-strength, even those that are currently not in the deployment cycle. If folks want to get in a deployable unit, they need to either find a unit in-state or do an IST to a deploying unit in another state. It takes a lot of legwork, but it can be done. We had two Soldiers from outside of Oregon in my company when we deployed to Southern Watch in 2000. The CA National Guard has been sending units into CENTCOM's AOR for quite a few years now so it doesn't surprise me that folks are staying in their units unless there's a darned good reaon for a transfer.
