ARLINGTON, Va. — Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, deputy chief of staff for the U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army in Germany since August 2005, has been named as the new commanding general of the 1st Armored Division, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany.
The announcement was posted Monday afternoon by the Office of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Also announced:
Brig. Gen. David R. Hogg, the 1st AD’s assistant division commander (support), has been named as commanding general for the Joint Multinational Training Command, U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany.Brig. Gen. Dennis E. Rogers, deputy commanding general and chief of staff for the U.S. Army Accessions Command at Fort Monroe, Va., was tapped as the next assistant division commander for the 1st AD.Brig. Gen. David G. Perkins, the Joint Multinational Training Command’s current commander, was nominated as the deputy chief of staff for G-3, or operations, for U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army, Germany.Hertling is no stranger to Germany, having spent his first assignment as a platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 64th Armor, 3rd Infantry Division after graduating from West Point in 1975.
Nor is he a stranger to the 1st AD: He went to war with the division in Operation Desert Shield/Storm in 1990/1991, when he was the the S-3, or Operations, officer, for 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry.
And Hertling returned to the 1st AD after graduating from the National War College in 1998, serving as Chief of the Operations Branch, later the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 (Operations).
Hertling’s first job as a general officer was his position as assistant division commander (support) for the 1st AD in September 2003, where he went straight to Iraq.
It was there, in Baghdad, through the early fall of 2003 that when Hertling — still wearing his 1st ID ADC hat — served as a spokesman for what was then known as the Combined Joint Task Force in Iraq, becoming a familiar face to Americans via the television.
Hertling introduced reporters and other listeners of his press conferences to a then-unfamiliar acronym: the “IED,” or “improvised explosive device,” which until the summer of 2003 was largely unknown to anyone who didn’t work in counter-terrorism circles.
Once away from the public eye, in Najaf, Hertling found himself and his troops toe-to-toe in June 2004 with firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers.
After brief but very intense fighting, Sadr issued an announcement stating that the Mahdi Army to stop its operations in Najaf and Kufa, on June 6, 2004, effectively ending the Shiite uprising in the area.
In triumph, Hertling told reporters at the time, “The Muqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone.”
Home from Iraq, back in Germany, Hertling was one of the Army’s point men for transformation.
