Lt. Col. Benjamin Washkowiak, left, commander of the 299th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, and Command Sgt. Maj. Adam Law, command sergeant major of the same unit, case the battalion colors during a ceremony on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, on June 06, 2026. The 299 BEB inactivated on the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, during which the unit's soldiers were among the first to land. (William Rogers/U.S. Army)
A 4th Infantry Division battalion that was involved in the D-Day landings in Normandy during World War II cased its colors over the weekend on the same beach where 82 years earlier its soldiers were among the first to land.
The 299th Brigade Engineer Battalion was inactivated during a ceremony honoring the soldiers who helped clear a path through German defenses for the first wave of Allied troops landing under heavy fire.
“Pioneers, today we stand on hallowed ground, ground where our legacy was written in blood, courage and unwavering determination,” battalion Sgt. Maj. Adam Law said during the ceremony.
The event was held on the anniversary of the June 6, 1944, landings in Normandy, where thousands of people gathered over the weekend to mark the occasion.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were on hand for a separate ceremony Saturday at the American cemetery that overlooks Omaha Beach, the site of one of the bloodiest assaults of the D-Day invasion.
Soldiers assigned to the 299th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, stand in formation during a battalion casing ceremony on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, on June 06, 2026. Soldiers assigned to the unit were among the first to land in Normandy on D-Day 82 years prior to the ceremony. (William Rogers/U.S. Army)
The soldiers of the battalion stood in final formation and cased their colors, marking the unit’s official inactivation. Its closure is related to an ongoing Army reorganization that will see soldiers from the battalion reassigned to other units in the service.
“A casing ceremony is always significant; it marks the end of a chapter and the beginning of the next,” Lt. Col. Benjamin Washkowiak, commander of the 299th Brigade Engineer Battalion, said in a statement. “But to conduct this ceremony here in Normandy carries a weight and meaning that no parade field back home could ever replicate.”
Over the years, soldiers with the battalion have been responsible for enabling ground forces to maneuver. The unit played a key role not only on D-Day but also in subsequent operations across France and Germany, performing missions ranging from bridge construction to demolition.
During the Normandy campaign, the battalion also helped establish one of the first temporary American cemeteries near the invasion beaches while combat operations were still ongoing, the 4th Infantry Division said.
The encased colors will be securely stored and ready to be uncased once again should the 299th Brigade Engineer Battalion be needed in the future, the division said.
