Topeka ? Kansas Army National Guard Maj. Eric Bishop will command a one-year mission to Iraq, but he’ll probably see his wife, Kim, before he gets back home.

She also is a Guard member on alert to be deployed.

With four children, that would put the couple in a bind, but there was no complaining Wednesday from either of the Bishops at a send-off ceremony for 50 guardsmen at Nickel Memorial Armory.

“I think it’s really a great mission,” said Capt. Kim Bishop, an attorney in Olathe. As she held her 1-year-old daughter, Celeste, who waved an American flag, Kim Bishop said, “I’m glad the Iraqi people are being helped.”

Kim Bishop, who received her undergraduate degree in business from Kansas University, said her children — ages 1, 8, 14 and 15 — would be taken care of by family members if she were deployed while her husband was still in Iraq.

Eric Bishop told the soldiers and their families at the ceremony to “keep us in your prayers. … It’ll be over before you know it.”

The event marked a unique deployment in that the 50 guardsmen from units throughout Kansas will be sent to the 42nd Infantry Division, known as the “Rainbow Division.”

The division, based in New York and New Jersey, is made up of guardsmen from seven states and used to help other units fill skilled maintenance and repair positions. The 42nd will be the first Guard unit to command and control Guard and active-duty units in combat since World War II.

Pfc. Jamie Love, 21, of Seneca, said she was eager to get to Iraq, where she will serve as an administrative assistant.

“I’ve always been taught to share and put other people first,” said Love, a student at Highland Community College studying political science and psychology.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, adjutant general of Kansas, vowed that the families left behind by soldiers would be taken care of.

“It’s our responsibility to make sure they are in good hands while you are gone and their needs are met,” Sebelius said.

The governor later told reporters that her administration was considering trying to make up the salary difference for state employees who were deployed as guardsmen and would see their take-home pay slashed.

Soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division stationed at Fort Riley make their way down the terminal ramp after leaving a plane at Forbes Field in Topeka. About 100 soldiers returned to Forbes Field from Iraq Wednesday on their way to Fort Riley for a welcome home ceremony. The troops had been deployed since September 2003. A Fort Riley soldier was killed Monday in Iraq, bringing the fort's toll to 41, as the 1st Infantry Division soldier began returning home.