PORTLAND – Twenty-one Maine National Guard soldiers have shipped out for three weeks of training in Colorado before joining the 108 members of the Maine-based 152nd Maintenance Company in Iraq.

The soldiers who left on a flight from the Portland International Jetport on Tuesday will spend the next three weeks improving their physical conditioning by training at an altitude of 6,300 feet at Fort Carson, Colo.

Many of the soldiers are members of the 3/172nd Mountain Division, a unit specializing in close-quarters combat. The soldiers are expected to take over the 152nd’s security mission so members of that unit can focus its maintenance duties.

“They’re a very motivated, young bunch of guys who are very eager,” said Lt. Col. Jack Mosher, who oversaw the soldiers’ recent combat training in Jericho, Vt. “It makes them extra sharp on those tasks.”

The 152nd Maintenance Company went on active duty last January. Their specialty is servicing and maintaining vehicles, including bulldozers, land scrapers, cranes and heavy construction equipment.