The 13,000-strong Alabama Guard, which has contributed more than 10,000 Soldiers and airmen to conflicts since 2001, has sent around 1,000 troops to training posts in Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin in preparation for an impending deployment to Iraq. Before shipping overseas, Soldiers are granted a five-day pass. If they choose to travel home to Alabama during those five days -- and if no Air Force transports are headed in the same direction -- then the Soldiers must pay their own way.

"The current situation is that some mobilized troops expect the government and the military to provide military transports so they can return home while on pass, but I explain there is no policy or procedure that will allow the military to do that," spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Robert Horton says.

Soldiers can catch free rides on Air Force aircraft already scheduled for missions that take them near the Soldiers' destinations. Horton calls this "opportune travel" and describes several occasions when mobilized Alabama Guardsmen have used it to their advantage. Those, Horton contends, occurred under different circumstances than today's.

"With tens of thousands of Guard members training at mobilization stations, the military does not have the resources available to pick them up and take them home," Horton adds. "That's why here in Alabama, we have deployment ceremonies before units leave the state to report to mobilization stations."

The policy has inspired a minor furor in Birmingham, according to one resident with no direct ties to the military.

"Our young people [are] willing to lay down their lives for our country, but we cannot (or will not) bring them home for one last visit with their family before they ship out?" schoolteacher Jessie Peeples wrote in an email to Military.com.

She heard about the policy on a local radio program last week.

"The people who listen to the talk show are very upset about this situation. The callers to the show were of all ages," Peeples recalls. "Any state should be much more grateful to their military. Or is it much easier just to say we are grateful for what our young people do in the defense of this country, rather than to dip into our pocketbooks and show we are thankful?"

Horton says that, in the past, citizen groups have chartered buses to bring troops home for visits.