Word: battalion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...different from other kids at a moment like this--and Lauren may be more different still. Her mom, her dad and her Uncle Darwin are all in Kuwait, and her Aunt Janis leaves this week. And if the fighting comes, her parents are likely to be the first married battalion commanders ever to fly into battle together. Lieut. Colonel Laura Richardson, 39, commands the 5th Battalion of the 101st aviation brigade, piloting the Black Hawks that ferry troops into battle; her husband, Lieut. Colonel Jim Richardson, 42, leads the 3rd Battalion, the Apaches that provide the protection and the firepower...
Only about 1 in 20 officers who start out as lieutenants ever gets a battalion command, and never before has a couple gone to war commanding battalions in the same Army unit. But the 101st has a habit of making history: during World War II, it led the way on D-day, dropping in the night before the invasion. In 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, the Screaming Eagles were the "first band in the sand" and fired the first shot...
...world: the early stages of Operation Anaconda. The soldiers of the division's 3rd Brigade had walked into a hornet's nest and clearly did not have the firepower they needed. By the end of the day, the division commander had ordered Jim and the rest of his battalion to pack their aircraft and head to Afghanistan. Ninety-six hours later, all his aircraft had been taken apart, loaded onto cargo planes and shipped out. The added firepower quickly turned the tide of the battle. "The al-Qaeda were used to seeing Apaches one or two at a time...
Only months after finishing that tour, Jim was deployed again, this time to Kuwait. He has had weeks to get his men and his aircraft ready, whereas Laura's battalion is still assembling aircraft and preparing to move to a newly built camp closer to the action but farther away from hot meals and telephones. Signs that the battle is approaching multiply by the day: the electrified fence along the border has tank doorways cut through it. The U.N. border observers are pulling out, and civilian officials are pulling back. At the various base camps, soldiers can wait in line...
...because this is a long process--though we are winning. The tide is turning." But for those in the midst of the battle, that can sometimes be hard to see. "No matter what they say about the rest of the country, it ain't like this place," says a battalion officer in the thick of the fight. "It's the worst place in the world...