HARRISBURG — Nearly 4,000 Pennsylvania National Guard members are being notified that they could be sent to Iraq within a year. The deployment, if fulfilled, would be the state Guard's largest to Iraq.

The soldiers are members of the 28th Division's 56th Stryker Brigade, headquartered in Philadelphia but spread across roughly 30 armories statewide.

They just recently received notification for training and are being told they will receive an "alert order" Friday, Capt. Cory Angell, a Guard spokesman, said Thursday.

A deployment would also mark the first time that Guard-controlled Stryker vehicles would see combat, Angell said.

"These soldiers have received equipment and training that some regular Army units haven't received, and I think it just shows that the National Guard is no longer a strategic reserve — it's an operational force," Angell said. "I think this will be historic."

A 2,200-member deployment to Iraq in the summer of 2005 — the largest since the Korean War — returned to Pennsylvania in June 2006. Roughly 14,000 guard members from Pennsylvania were deployed during the Korean War.

The Pennsylvania National Guard, regarded as one of the nation's largest and most deployed state Guards, is the only one with a Stryker brigade.

The first Stryker vehicles arrived here in June 2006. There are 10 variations of the 19-ton, eight-wheeled vehicles to meet different needs, such as troop carrying, medical evacuation, mine detection and heavy artillery.

The Pentagon is in the process of alerting eight National Guard units nationwide that they should be ready to go to Iraq or Afghanistan beginning late next summer. The units are needed to maintain troop levels, ease some of the strain on the active duty Army and provide security for ports, convoys and other installations.

Because the announcement looks far into the future, there is always the possibility that plans could change, based on conditions in Iraq.

To date, about 5,000 Pennsylvania Guard troops have served in Iraq and 750 have served in Afghanistan, Angell said. The state Guard currently has 650 deployed worldwide.