JACKSON, Miss. – Graduation day rapidly is approaching for thousands of National Guard soldiers from at least 37 states, including Maine, who trained at Camp Shelby and now await deployment to hot spots in the Middle East.

Special events are planned next week to mark the occasion, including a public concert and deployment ceremonies for the two brigade-sized units that have received intense training in recent months at the sprawling 136,000-acre National Guard base near Hattiesburg.

Maj. Doril Sanders, a Camp Shelby spokesman, said next Wednesday’s concert will feature Bobby Rush, a blues artist from Jackson, and Confederate Railroads, a country band from Nashville, Tenn.

Training at the base has included theater immersion, designed to simulate the experiences, sights and sounds the soldiers will encounter when they are deployed. The base’s training grounds include a mock Middle Eastern city complete with Arabic role players who teach the soldiers how to deal with the culture in the Middle East.

Maj. Gen. Harold Cross, adjutant general for the Mississippi National Guard, says the training regiment at Camp Shelby has become “a crown jewel in the portfolio of the Army.”

“It was the first to incorporate theater immersion and it’s morphed almost weekly with the threats in Iraq,” he said.

A send-off ceremony was planned for next week for about 4,000 members of the 2/28th Brigade Combat Team.

The 2/28th is made up largely of Pennsylvania troops but the unit represents 35 other states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The soldiers are headed for undisclosed areas in Iraq.