{"id":45676,"date":"2020-01-07T21:53:30","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T02:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=45676"},"modified":"2020-01-07T21:53:58","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T02:53:58","slug":"were-going-to-war-bro-fort-braggs-82nd-airborne-deploys-to-the-middle-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2020\/01\/were-going-to-war-bro-fort-braggs-82nd-airborne-deploys-to-the-middle-east\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We’re going to war, bro’: Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne deploys to the Middle East"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission.\nThey packed up ammunition and rifles, placed last-minute calls to loved ones,\nthen turned in their cellphones. Some gave blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 600 mostly young soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina,\nwere headed for the Middle East, part of a group of some 3,500 U.S.\nparatroopers ordered to the region. Kuwait is the first stop for many. Their\nfinal destinations are classified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to war, bro,\u201d one cheered, holding two thumbs\nup and sporting a grin under close-shorn red hair. He stood among dozens of\nsoldiers loading trucks outside a cinder-block building housing several\nauditoriums with long benches and tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Days after President Donald Trump ordered the drone killing\nof Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, raising fears of fresh conflict\nin the Middle East, the men and women of the U.S. Army\u2019s storied 82nd Airborne\nDivision are moving out in the largest \u201cfast deployment\u201d since the 2010 Haiti\nearthquake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 82nd\u2019s commander, U.S. Army Major General James Mingus,\nwaded through the sea of camouflage-uniformed men and women as they prepared to\nleave the base near Fayetteville on Sunday. He shook hands with the troops,\nwishing them luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One soldier from Ashboro, Virginia, said he wasn\u2019t surprised\nwhen the order came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was just watching the news, seeing how things were going\nover there,\u201d said the 27-year-old, one of several soldiers Reuters was allowed\nto interview on condition they not be named. \u201cThen I got a text message from my\nsergeant saying \u2018Don\u2019t go anywhere.\u2019 And that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the killing of Soleimani has ratcheted up tensions\nbetween the United States and Iran, it remains to be seen whether they will\nescalate to full-out conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump last week said he ordered the killing to stop a war,\nnot to start one. And despite Tehran\u2019s strident rhetoric, analysts say Iran\nwill want to avoid any conventional conflict with the United States and is\nlikely to focus on asymmetric strikes, such as sabotage or other military\naction via proxies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risks seemed to be pushed to the back of the minds of the\nyounger soldiers, though many packed the base chapel after a breakfast of eggs,\nwaffles, oatmeal, sausages and 1,000 doughnuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One private took a strap tethered to a transport truck and\ntried to hitch it to the belt of an unwitting friend, a last prank before\nshipping out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018THIS IS THE MISSION\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The older soldiers, in their 30s and 40s, were visibly more\nsomber, having the experience of seeing comrades come home from past\ndeployments learning to walk on one leg or in flag-draped coffins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cThis is the mission,\nman,\u201d said Brian Knight, a retired Army veteran who has been on five combat\ndeployments to the Middle East. He is the current director of a chapter of the\nUnited Service Organizations military support charity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re answering America\u2019s 911 call,\u201d Knight said.\n\u201cThey\u2019re stoked to go. The president called for the 82nd.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was lots of wrestling holds as the troops tossed their\n75-pound (34 kg) backpacks onto transport trucks. The packs hold everything\nfrom armor-plated vests, extra socks and underwear, to 210 rounds of ammunition\nfor their M4 carbines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sergeant pushed through the crowd shouting for anyone with\nType O blood, which can be transfused into any patient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe medics need you now. Move,\u201d he said, before a handful\nof troops walked off to give a little less than a pint each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNCERTAINTY PREVAILS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While members of the unit – considered the most mobile in\nthe U.S. Army – are used to quick deployments, this was different, said\nLieutenant Colonel Mike Burns, an Army spokesman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe guys are excited to go, but none of us know how long\nthey\u2019ll be gone,\u201d Burns said. \u201cThat\u2019s the toughest part.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldiers were ordered not to bring cellphones, portable\nvideo games or any other devices that could be used to communicate with friends\nand family back home, out of concern that details of their movements could leak\nout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re an infantry brigade,\u201d Burns said. \u201cOur primary\nmission is ground fighting. This is as real as it gets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sergeant started rattling off last names, checking them\noff from a list after \u201cheres\u201d and \u201cyups\u201d and \u201cyos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For every fighter, there were seven support crew members\nshipping out: cooks, aviators, mechanics, medics, chaplains, and transportation\nand supply managers. All but the chaplains would carry guns to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 34-year-old senior master sergeant said: \u201cThe Army is an\nall-volunteer force. We want to do this. You pay your taxes and we get to do\nthis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality of the deployment wouldn\u2019t sink in until the\ntroops \u201cwalk out that door,\u201d he said, pointing to the exit to the tarmac where\nC-5 and C-17 transport planes and two contract commercial jets waited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His call came when he was on leave in his hometown of\nDaytona Beach, Florida, taking his two young daughters to visit relatives and\nmaybe go to Walt Disney World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just got there and I got the call to turn right around\nand head back to base,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife knows the drill. I had to go. We\ndrove right back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a single order, hundreds of soldiers jumped to their\nfeet. They lined up single file and marched out carrying their guns and kits\nand helmets, past a volunteer honor guard holding aloft flags that flapped east\nin the January wind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission. They packed up ammunition and rifles, placed last-minute calls to loved ones, then turned in their cellphones. Some gave… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}