The Department of Defense announced Monday that the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment is again scheduled to deploy to Iraq, possibly as early as next year.

The 278th, which includes Shelbyville's Company G, Forward Support Company, Regimental Support Squadron, is included in 14,000 troops the Defense Department says will have a security force mission that will include base defense and route security in Iraq and Kuwait.

The deployments are scheduled to begin in the spring of 2009, according to the release.

But Lt. Heidi Jackson, deputy director of the Joint Forces Public Affairs office in Nashville, contends that nothing has changed since last week, when the 278th was placed on alert status.

"Right now, all they have is an alert order," Jackson said this morning. "They do not have a mobilization order.

"Those 14,000 will begin the mobilization process in Spring 2009. That is what is planned right now. But we don't know where -- or when -- during that timeline the 278th will begin their mobilization process.

"Of that 14,000, not everyone will begin at the same time, so we don't know when they'll fall out in there. If you're National Guard, you know that tap may be coming at any time."

The 278th, headquartered in Knoxville, is the state's largest unit and has about 4,000 soldiers. The unit was last in Iraq in 2006.

The deployment details announced Monday include Guard brigades in Tennessee, Texas, Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

The alert gives units a chance to train, check equipment and prepare for a deployment.

The Pentagon on Monday announced upcoming deployments of more than 42,000 troops, including 25,000 active duty Army soldiers who would be sent to Iraq beginning in the fall to replace troops scheduled to come home by year's end.

The deployments would maintain a level of 15 brigades in Iraq, or roughly 140,000 troops -- the number military leaders expect will remain on the warfront at the end of July, once the currently planned withdrawals are finished.

Under the new Pentagon policy effective in August, those active duty Army units will serve for 12 months, rather than the 15-month tours that units in Iraq now are serving. The bulk of the soldiers deploying later this year returned from Iraq late last year, and will have gotten about a year at home to rest and retrain.

The Guard announcements, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, are being made far in advance so that soldiers and their families can begin training and other preparations for their service.

--The Associated Press contributed to this report