"Traditionally, White Sands has been a test entity. That changed a little bit two years ago when we brought on a force command unit, the 2nd Engineer Battalion, which meant for the first time in history we had deployable troops here," said Monte Marlin.

Capt. John Deal of the 2nd Engineer Battalion is one of those troops. He said men and women had two primary jobs with Operation Iraqi Freedom, the first taking place in the actual war zone.

"Their primary role was to provide route clearance as well as train the 4th Infantry Iraqi regime on engineer tasks," said Deal.

The other job happened back at the WSMR base.

"Our mission back here is to support garrison type activities, take care of the families back here, making sure they're well maintained and taking care of their needs," he said.

And just a month ago, the 573rd Clearance Company from WSMR returned from Iraq.

"The feeling you get once you get off that plane and everything is a sense of pride not only for the soldiers, but of the families because of the ordeal they go through too," said Deal.

Since WSMR has primarily focused on weapons testing and development for most of its existence, having the 2nd Engineer Battalion on base has re-energized the installations focus.

"That really brought home to us the needs of the soldier and helped us remember that everything we do on a daily basis is to support our soldiers in uniform," said Marlin.

Marlin said since the technology of modern warfare is constantly changing, the military relies heavily on the weapons testing and development that takes place at WSMR.

"One of the unique things about dealing with the current conflicts is the change in the types of threats and how we counter them. For instance, we do work now that looks at improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and how we can help detect those and counter them using high-power microwaves," said Marlin. "What we test here at White Sands one day may very quickly be in the hands of the soldiers in theater and ready for them to use and hopefully save lives."

Over 100 troops from the 573rd Clearance Company arrived back at WSMR within the month, but dozens of troops were transferred straight to Afghanistan. WSMR officials said they will pretty much continue to play the same role in Afghanistan that they did in Iraq.