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gallery173rd Airborne Brigade jumps into combat drills in Slovenia
Stars and Stripes
April 3, 2019
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, descend onto Cerklje Drop Zone in Slovenia, March 22, 2019 after exiting from a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules during exercise Eagle Sokol. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, descend onto Cerklje Drop Zone in Slovenia, March 22, 2019 after exiting from a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules during exercise Eagle Sokol. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army Paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, engage targets during a night live-fire exercise as part of Eagle Sokol at Pocek Range in Slovenia, March 26, 2019. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, run to their firing position during exercise Eagle Sokol 19, at Pocek Training Area, Slovenia, March 26, 2019. (Henry Villarama/U.S. Army)
Lt. Col. Robert Shaw, battalion commander in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, addresses his paratroopers during exercise Eagle Sokol 19, at Pocek Training Area, Slovenia, March 26, 2019. (Henry Villarama/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army paratroopers conduct an airborne operation from a C17 Globemaster III during exercise Eagle Sokol at Cerklje Drop Zone in Slovenia, March 22, 2019. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, engage the targets during a blank-fire exercise during Eagle Sokol at Pocek Range in Slovenia, March 25, 2019. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, exit from a 12th Combat Aviation Brigade CH-47 Chinook helicopter, during Exercise Eagle Sokol at Pocek Range in Slovenia, March 25, 2019. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
A U.S. Army paratrooper assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, engages targets during a blank-fire exercise as part of Eagle Sokol at Pocek Range in Slovenia, March 25, 2019. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, conduct radio checks during a live-fire exercise as part of Eagle Sokol at Pocek Range in Slovenia, March 26, 2019. (Paolo Bovo/U.S. Army)
U.S. paratroopers practiced jumping into combat scenarios and conducted live-fire drills during the Eagle Sokol exercise in Slovenia this past week.
Approximately 500 soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade joined with their Slovenian counterparts for the exercise, which concluded Wednesday.
The rapid deployment exercise tested the soldiers’ ability to assemble forces, get into a fight fast and maintain cohesive battlefield operations, officials said.
During the jump, sappers from the brigade’s engineer battalion and infantrymen parachuted into the mock battlefield to provide an opening for follow-on forces. The soldiers only found out they were going to jump into the action the night before the airborne assault, while they were still at their home base in Italy.
“What we did here was to demonstrate our capability to conduct joint forcible entry operations anywhere in the world with limited notice,” said Lt. Col. Robert Shaw, commander of 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade.
The brigade is billed as the U.S. Army’s contingency response force in Europe, charged with quickly projecting forces throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East in an emergency.
During the training, the soldiers practiced small unit tactics, and conducted day and nighttime airborne assaults, including offensive and defensive maneuvers. Soldiers honed their accuracy on weapons such as the M240B machine gun, M224 60 mm mortars and their service rifles.