3rd Brigade 82nd Airborne Division (Vietnam)

Panther Team,

This will be my last update from Iraq.  Today as I send this letter to you, we are only days away from our Transition of Authority with 1/101st Airborne (Air Assault).  Over the past several weeks we have been busy transitioning responsibility and setting up the Bastogne Soldiers for success.  We are nearing the end of our right-seat-left-seat rides, and our Paratroopers are getting ready to come home after a hard 15 months in Iraq.  We are grateful for the love and support of everyone back home who kept us going during these trying times.  From our families, the FRGs, the 505th Associations, to the numerous organizations who sent us countless care packages, I want to extend my personal appreciation for everything you have done for our Paratroopers.

As our Paratroopers arrive home, they will have a period of well-earned rest and recuperation.  The first weekend upon return to Fort Bragg every Paratrooper will receive a four-day weekend followed by 10 half-days of reintegration.  During reintegration every Paratrooper will have a series of finance, medical and dental screenings and briefings.   Much of the reintegration period is geared towards allowing time for Paratroopers to get personal matters in order and to spend as much time as possible with their families.

Every Paratrooper will go through Basic Airborne Refresher and will jump the last week of November after a 7-day Thanksgiving holiday (normal 4-day weekend plus 3 x admin days, one for each month after 12 in combat).  Early December, we will depart for one month of block leave.   This schedule will allow every Paratrooper to spend the holidays with his or her loved ones.  It will allow time for all of us to get re-acquainted with family members whom we have not seen for the past 15 months.                 

Since my last update our main focus in Salah ad Din has centered on starting local reconciliation with the tribes and their sheiks.  As I mentioned before, in early July, most of the sheiks in the province came together and created the Salad ad Din Support Council.  The goal of this organization is to fight al-Qaeda and other terrorist elements in the province and deny the enemy safe havens in tribal areas.

Our battalion commanders established security contracts with the sheiks in their areas and created what has come to be known as the Concerned Local Citizens program.  The security contracts allows for each sheik to hire members of his tribe to protect critical infrastructure in their areas and to curb violence levels.  As of date we have contracts with 26 tribes, and more than 2,700 Iraqis are a part of the CLC program.  They are making a great contribution in making Salah ad Din a safer place.  We have seen a reduction of 150 IED events per month in the Province since the contracts were signed and a commensurate decrease in significant activities by our enemy.  I just want to highlight a couple of the successes of this program.

In Bayji, 1-Panther has seen a significant reduction in IED attacks.  In fact, the 20 mile stretch of road north of the Fertilizer Plant saw a reduction from 39 IEDs to just 3 over a period of 15 days at the end of August.

East side of Tikrit, on the other side of the Tigris River, Task Force Loyalty has done a great job providing security for the city of Ad-Dawr.  As many of you may remember, Ad-Dawr was the city where Saddam Hussein was captured in 2003, and it was also the place where we established Patrol Base Woodcock after Operation Hershey.  Hand-in-hand with the security forces in Ad-Dawr and the CLCs, the Paratroopers of Loyalty worked to bring stability and security to surrounding towns and villages.  Their success has been noticed by the COIN academy, where Ad-Dawr has become a case study for incoming units on how to conduct a classic counterinsurgency operation.

The Paratroopers of 2-Panther, working with a local tribe and the National Police have had great success against al-Qaeda in the Samarra area.  The Golden Mosque bomber, Haitham Sabah al-Badri met his end at the hands of well-integrated U.S. attack helicopters in early August.   As the city moves towards the reconstruction of the Golden Dome Mosque, it will also experience a holistic program of revitalization and rejuvenation.  The city of Samarra will move into this next phase with the help of Bastogne, but it was due to 2-Panther’s efforts that Samarra is ready to make the leap into a new era.

Eventually the Iraqis working on the CLC contracts will become policemen or find legitimate jobs as the economy improves.  As violence levels decrease throughout the province, reconstruction can occur at a much larger level and jobs can be created for Iraqis.  The Bastogne BCT, led by COL Scott Mcbride, will lead Salah ad Din into the next phase and will be successful in helping the province reach Provincial Iraqi Control.  The Bastgones are a great unit, led by capable leaders, and we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers as we begin to redeploy.

Unfortunately we have lost 10 Paratroopers, Soldiers, and Seamen during the past two months, and we pray for their families and loved ones.  During the past two months 2-Panther lost two Paratroopers: SGT Joshua Morley and SPC Tracy Willis both on August 26 after heroically fighting off an al-Qaeda onslaught on their position in Samarra.  5-73 CAV lost SSG Joshua Mattero on July 29 and SSG Joan Duran on August 10.  1-Panther lost SFC David Heringes from an IED on August 24 and CPL Anthony Bento from a landmine on September 24.  We lost two soldiers from 3-8 CAV: PFC Dane Balcon and CPL William Warford on September 9 from an IED blast.  We also lost two Navy EOD techs in an IED blast: Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffery Chaney and Chief Petty Officer Patrick Wade.  Their sacrifice will never be forgotten and their contributions to this fight were countless.  Our prayers are with the families that were left behind.     
                         
All The Way!! H-Minus!!  Panther 6  (COL Bryan Owens)

82nd Airborne Division          “America’s Guard of Honor”

As many of you know, the 82d Division was activated on August 17, 1917 during WWI. This is our 90th Anniversary.  Ironically, our troops are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan 90 years later.  You should also know that the 82d took about 7,000 casualties in 3 months during 1918 and that the most famous soldier of the war was an 82d man – Sgt Alvin York.

Virtually everyone reading this has seen Gary Cooper’s famous movie shot in 1939 – 1940 portraying Sgt (then Cpl) York accomplishing the most famous feat of arms of anyone in the 20th Century.  In October, 1918 Sgt. York single handedly killed 25 enemy soldiers and captured 132 others. He won one of the few Medals of Honor awarded to enlisted men of that period. He did this only with his rifle and .45 cal pistol. Ironically, he donated all of the royalties from that movie to a school for children in his home state of Tennessee.

The writer is convinced that the only reason that the 82nd was reactivated in WWII was because of the fame of Sgt York and Gary Cooper’s movie. 

The birthday of our Division was August 17, 1917 and we are celebrating our 90th Anniversary in 2007. Did you also know that we have had 3 unit designations?  The 82d Division of WWI, the 82nd Infantry Division in the early days of WWII, commanded by  none other than the future 5 star General, Omar Bradley and finally the 82nd Airborne Division from August, 1942 to the present day.

In WWII, the 82nd made 4 combat jumps and glider assaults, fought against tremendous odds in the Battle of the Bulge and fought all the way into Germany.  The Division accepted the surrender of a 121,000 man German Army.  It was assigned to Berlin at the end of the war and was noted by General Patton as “America’s Guard of Honor”. The Division lost thousands of men in WWII and fought in some of the most horrific battles in Europe.

Although the Division did not fight in the Korean War, it supplied many of the paratroopers for the 187th Regimental Combat Team.  The 187 made 2 combat jumps there and suffered almost 1,700 men killed in action.

The 82nd served in the Cold War as the country’s forward ready reaction force.  It sent units all over the world on various deployments.  In 1965, it deployed to the Dominican Republic to quell the civil war raging there.  Paratroopers were also sent to the Congo in 1967 to protect the Embassy and American citizens.  The Detroit riots came in the fall of 1967.

In February, 1968, President Johnson sent 3,500 paratroopers to assist in the fighting around Hue during the Tet Offensive. That Brigade lost 227 men killed and 1,250 wounded before coming home in December, 1969.

Grenada was next, then it was Panama, then Desert Storm. It was the first unit to ‘draw a line in the sand when ordered there by then President George Bush. In the meantime, when it wasn’t doing anything better, elements served in the Sinai and the Balkans.  It has  responded to hurricanes in Florida and lately in New Orleans during Katria.  It also donned its parachutes for a jump in Haiti. Knowledge that the 82nd was in flight to Haiti brought about the immediate end to a corrupt dictatorship in that impoverished country.

It has been deployed several times to Afghanistan and Iraq in the Global War on Terror.  Currently, the Division has about 15,000 Paratroopers in Iraq and 5,000 in Afghanistan.  The current Division Commander, Major General David Rodriguez (Also Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force – 76) is in Afghanistan leading his Paratroopers in the fight in the mountains along the Pakistan border. Losses in both theatres have been very heavy but these young Paratroopers soldier on to protect America.

Few other divisions in the US Army can trace their lineage back so far, with so many battle streamers.

With all of this activity, it is no wonder that the 90th Anniversary has not been commemorated in the fashion that it should be. Some sort of recognition needs to be given to these young and old heroes – past and present – living and dead for their valiant service to our nation.

During WWII, General Jim Gavin once said that “A man who will jump out of a plane will certainly fight for his country”. No truer words have ever been spoken!

Happy Birthday, Heroes!

Richard F. O’Hare