Topeka ? Sixty-six soldiers from Kansas are being recalled to active duty for service in Iraq or Afghanistan, an Army spokeswoman said Friday.

The soldiers are among 5,600 nationwide who are part of the Individual Ready Reserve, who have previously fulfilled their active duty service requirements and are no longer attached to a unit.

Andrea Wales, a spokeswoman for the Army’s Human Resources Command in St. Louis, said the soldiers would start receiving their notifications Tuesday and would be called to active duty through December. Each soldiers will have 30 days to report after being notified, she said.

The 66 soldiers have skills in demand in Iraq and Afghanistan. Primarily, they will work in support services, providing transportation and mechanical services, for example. Wales said some engineers would be included in the activation.

Wales did not know where the soldiers would report or a specific date they would be mobilized.

“It would depend on where the Army needed them and what their skill is,” Wales said.

In Washington, Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., also confirmed the news.

“This further demonstrates the need to increase our active duty end strength capabilities in the face of the ongoing war on terror, as the House passed in the 2005 Defense Authorization bill,” Ryun said.

There are 111,000 soldiers in the ready reserve. In January, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld authorized the Army to mobilize 6,500 ready-reserve soldiers for up to 18 months.

The last time the Individual Ready Reserve was used was the Persian Gulf War, when 20,000 soldiers were mobilized and deployed.

Joy Moser, a spokeswoman for the Kansas National Guard, said officials had not been notified if any ready reserve soldiers would be assigned to Kansas units. Of the 66 soldiers to be mobilized, four will go to National Guard units nationwide, while the remaining 62 will go to Army Reserve units.

There are approximately 1,500 Kansas National Guard soldiers mobilized, including 1,100 that are expected to deploy to Iraq later this year or early 2005.

Wales said the goal in using the ready reserve was to keep soldiers who have already served in Iraq from returning in a short time frame.