82nd Airborne Division's
message is clear: 'We are ready'
Story and photos by Jeremy Kirk,
Stars and Stripes
Pfc. Lawrence
Cushionberry, a military policeman with the 82nd Airborne Division, moves concertina wire
Wednesday near a command post for an exercise at Ft. Bragg. |
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — While Army officials say the 82nd Airborne Division
hasn’t received deployment orders and is training as usual, it is evident Fort Bragg
has moved toward a wartime footing.
Longtime residents say it’s the first time barbed wire has lined the perimeter of
the usually open base. Soldiers with weapons stand at its gates. Operational security is
at its highest, with no one uttering a word of where the soldiers might go.
"The 82nd Airborne Division’s message to you: ‘We are ready,’
" said Col. Karl Horst, division chief of staff during a Wednesday press briefing.
"We were ready on the 10th of September. We were ready last month. We were ready last
year."
But special operations troops did receive a deployment order on Sept. 20, said Carol
Darby, media chief of the Army Special Operations Command. Darby said she couldn’t
comment on what units may deploy and their location.
Now under way is a training exercise, the components of which would mirror the
challenges soldiers would face during war. At Pike Field — an open, grassy plain on
Fort Bragg — soldiers are engaged in the Warfighter exercise, a computer-driven war
simulation, Horst said.
The scenario, created about a year and a half ago, uses a mountainous, high-desert
environment for the war. Despite speculation that soldiers may go to Afghanistan, Horst
said "it’s coincidental" soldiers are simulating a desert battlefield.
The military has moved toward computer battle simulations to supplement in-field
training because it’s cheaper and takes less toll on equipment, Horst said. Soldiers
in all ranks take part, although the exercise focuses on leader and staff training, he
said.
Sgt. Steven Snyder, 27,
and Sgt. Luke Pearson, 23, both with the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, update their
paperwork Wednesday as part of an exercise that officials said wasn't related to the
military buildup. |
Battle computers show unit icons, and players must ensure units have food and water,
ammunition and ultimately can win the war. Private contractors help manage the complex
computers that can replicate "virtually any challenge on the battlefield," Horst
said.
The 82nd — with about 14,000 soldiers — is pegged as most likely to be called
into action in the brewing war against terrorism. The unit has a long history of being the
first into battle.
It went to Grenada in 1983 and Honduras in 1988. It made up the largest deployment
since Vietnam when it went to Saudi Arabia in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. But the late
1990s brought different challenges.
One battalion — 1st Battalion, 325th Infantry Airborne Regiment — returned in
June from the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. That meant a six-month loss of training in
the division’s specialty: jumping from planes.
"The six months they were gone, they experienced some degradation in their combat
skills," Horst said. "It took us three months to get them up to speed when they
got back."
Those soldiers refocused on the close-combat skills, Horst said.
At all times, one-third of the division must be ready to deploy within 18 hours
anywhere in the world. Another third is on a training cycle refining skills. The remaining
third focuses on support of units ready for deployment.
Individual training is intense. According to officials, in one year a soldier at Fort
Bragg trains about 270 days, runs 700 miles and does 12 parachute operations while
participating in day and night live-fire exercises.
As part of the Warfighter exercise, soldiers filled out forms near a camouflaged tent.
They were assembling documents needed before deployment, such as a will, power of attorney
and shot records.
Filling out forms is part of routine training, Army officials said.
Spc. Jeff Loy, 21, of
Kokomo, Ind., stands near a bay used to fix Humvees at Ft. Bragg. "Ever since this
happened, I feel it’s my duty to go over there," he said. |
Numerous Army and Air Force servicemembers talked to Wednesday said they had not
received a vaccination against anthrax, a deadly biological agent. The Defense Department
suspended the program in June after supplies ran out.
"We’re not administering anthrax right now," Horst said.
Sgt. Luke Pearson, 23, was standing in a line waiting to turn in a folder of forms. He
already has a will. Pearson said he has limited his intake of media about possible
deployment.
"My motto is ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’" Pearson said.
Soldiers who spoke to the media generally said they are not daunted by fighting
somewhere in response to the terrorist attacks. The mood on post is calm, controlled and
confident.
"I feel like I want to go real bad," said Spc. Jeff Loy, a 20-year-old
mechanic from Kokomo, Ind. "Ever since this happened, I feel it’s my duty to go
over there."
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