It was a discreet public send-off.

Members of the Lawrence-based 3430th Military Intelligence Detachment, part of the Army Reserve, were presented with a Kansas state flag during a ceremony Tuesday as they prepared for a yearlong deployment.

But officials wouldn’t say what it was the unit would be doing, nor where it was going.

“We should not give that out for publication,” said Maj. Gen. Michael Symanski, commander of the 89th Regional Support Command that oversees the 3430th.

“We know we’re working on the war on terrorism,” said Maj. Monica Harwig, commander of the 3430th. “We look at the terrorist organizations.”

Symanski said the unit probably wouldn’t be going to Iraq.

“For the type of mission this unit does, I’d say it’s extremely unlikely,” he said.

The nine-member detachment has three members from Kansas – none from Lawrence. All have bachelor’s degrees, Harwig said, and most have master’s degrees.

The 3430th was originally formed so that Kansas University professors could perform military intelligence duties in a Reserve role, she said, though no KU faculty serve in the unit today.

It’s the first time in the unit’s 53-year history that it has been activated, signaling the military’s increasing reliance on Reserve units, Symanski said.

“The Army is structured in such a way that operations of any size require Reserve components,” he said.

The flag presentation Tuesday at the Army Reserve center, 21st and Iowa streets, was part of a relatively new tradition in the Army, Symanski said. Since the Gulf War, Reserve units have taken flags of the unit’s home state with them on deployments abroad.

“That way,” Symanski said, “they take part of the community with them.”