Fort Riley ? A brigade of soldiers from Fort Riley is preparing to leave for a deployment to Afghanistan.

Officials with the 1st Infantry Division say hundreds of soldiers from the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team are scheduled to depart from the northeast Kansas Army post next week. The Dragon Brigade has twice deployed to Iraq since 2006 when it was organized at Fort Riley.

Col. Joseph Wawro and Command Sgt. Maj. Wiley Hutchison, the brigade’s commander and senior noncommissioned officer, cased its colors April 26 in preparation for its first deployment to Afghanistan.

The brigade will serve under the 1st Infantry Division’s headquarters deployed in Afghanistan as Regional Command-East.

The first soldiers from the brigade left for Afghanistan in April.