SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — About 20 Illinois Army National Guard soldiers who’ve spent much of this year in Afghanistan embedded with Polish troops are expected to return home this week.

The National Guard says the troops from the Bilateral Embedded Staff Team will be honored at a ceremony Thursday at Camp Lincoln in Springfield.

The team was part of a task force of 3,000 troops that also included other Americans and Ukrainians. They were assigned to patrol roads between Kabul and Kandahar.

The National Guard troops were mobilized in January and trained in Indiana and Poland before going to Afghanistan. The soldiers are from across Illinois.

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