More North Dakota National Guard soldiers are coming home from Afghanistan while military officials finalize a list of soldiers who will soon be heading to Iraq.

Most of the 152 soldiers serving in Afghanistan with the 188th Air Defense Artillery's Security Forces will arrive in Fort Lewis, Wash., around March 22 to start the demobilization process, Maj. Gen. David Sprynczynatyk, the Guard commander, said Wednesday. The soldiers have been on active duty since December 2005 and have been in Afghanistan for a year.

About 40 of the soldiers will stay in the country another week to help with the transition to replacement forces, Sprynczynatyk said.

"Our goal is to have them all home by the first of April," he said.

The unit is credited with more than 1,200 successful missions in Afghanistan. Soldiers did everything from border security work to rebuilding schools.

"They've not only taken the fight to the Taliban (insurgents), they've done so much more," Gov. John Hoeven told 188th family members who gathered in a Bismarck armory Wednesday.

Thirty-nine soldiers with the 188th's J-LENS unit returned home in early February. They were replaced in Afghanistan by soldiers from another unit of the 188th, called RAID.

Raynee Morrell, of Bismarck, whose son, Travis, is a specialist with the Security Forces, said the past year has been tough on the families.

"We lost four soldiers, too. They're not coming home," she said. "That's been rough."

The 188th is based in Grand Forks and Bismarck. Four members of the unit have been killed in Afghanistan since last June: Cpl. Christopher Kleinwachter, 29, of Wahpeton; Cpl. Nathan J. Goodiron, 25, of Mandaree; and two Bismarck residents - Cpl. Curtis Mehrer, 21, and Sgt. Travis Van Zoest, 21.

While the 188th Security Forces come home, members of the North Dakota Guard's 817th and 815th Engineer Companies are preparing for duty in Iraq. About 250 soldiers with the units in Jamestown, Edgeley, Wishek and Lisbon were put on alert in mid-February.

The Guard said 110 soldiers will be selected for a mobilized unit that will be designated as the 817th and will serve in Iraq as part of a larger battalion of Guardsmen from across the country.

Sprynczynatyk said the list of 110 soldiers likely will be final by the end of the week. A few soldiers have asked not to be chosen because they have served in Iraq with other Guard units, he said.

"Most of them are saying, 'We're in the National Guard, we're prepared, we always knew this might happen,"' Sprynczynatyk said.

The soldiers are expected to leave North Dakota in June or July, and to serve for one year. The military has not released the exact mission.

Forty-three members of the North Dakota Air National Guard's Fargo-based 119th Wing currently are serving as volunteer in Iraq, and one member of the unit is in Afghanistan, said 1st Lt. Penny Ripperger, a wing spokeswoman.

"A lot are maintenance people who are working on the planes overseas," she said.

The volunteers also include civil engineers and security forces, Ripperger said. Unlike the Army Guard, Air Guard soldiers usually are not mobilized in large units. Air Guard tours of duty also are shorter, typically about six months.