Sometime early next year more than 1,000 soldiers from across Missouri will deploy to Kosovo, which is a southern province of Serbia, in Europe. They'll be part of the NATO led peacekeeping operation that's been in Kosovo since June of 1999 . The NATO led Kosovo Force, or KFOR, deployed to Kosovo following a U.S. 78 day air campaign to stop a humanitarian catastrophe.

Many of the Missouri National Guard soldiers who'll ship out for Kosovo next year, have already deployed at least once to Kuwait, Iraq or Afghanistan. Our story profiled a major in the Guard, who will leave his job as a highway patrolman and before the end of October will go on active duty. He'll be working fulltime to make preparations for the yearlong deployment. Many people are saying, at least they're not going to Iraq. And while they and their families are very happy about that, this deployment won't be a cakewalk. The soldiers will be seperated from their families for a year, they'll no longer be receiving a paycheck from their civilian employers (will get military pay, but for most it's a lot less) and there's a reason why they'll carry M-16's and travel in armored vehicles.