bobdina
09-05-2009, 10:16 AM
82nd, 3rd CAB extended in Afghanistan
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 4, 2009 15:45:09 EDT
The deployments of the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade have been extended in Afghanistan to ensure follow-on units have one year at home before deploying next summer, the Army announced Thursday.
The 82nd Airborne Division headquarters, operating in Afghanistan as Combined Joint Task Force-82, will stay for 52 additional days and return in June. The 3rd CAB, based at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga., will begin deploying in October and their stay in Afghanistan will be extended by 14 days beyond the one-year mark.
The 101st Airborne Division headquarters, which returned from Afghanistan in June this year, was slated to deploy in December 2010, but will return to Afghanistan six months earlier than expected, cutting its 18-month dwell time to 12 months. The headquarters will replace the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters in a transfer of authority scheduled for June.
The 3rd CAB, which returned from its last deployment in August 2008, will be replaced by the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Drum, N.Y., which is currently in Iraq and scheduled to begin redeploying in October.
These extensions, which may affect up to 7,000 soldiers, mark the first time since early 2007 that units have had announced extensions while in theater. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shortly after taking his position in January 2007, announced the deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Iraq. He also announced deployments for all units in Iraq and Afghanistan and those deploying before August 2007 would be on 15-month rotations at that time.
At a June 21, 2007, press conference, Gates said further extensions would be for “a worst-case scenario,” and he reiterated the goal to eventually get back to 12-month deployments with 12 months at home, then to a rotation of one year deployed, two years at home.
These latest “adjustments,” according to the Army press release, are to get division headquarters elements in Afghanistan on a better continuity footing at home, allowing them to deploy closer to a ratio of one year away, two years at home.
An Army official indicated there will likely be a third headquarters element that would come into play with the deployment cycles of the 82nd and the 101st to help build in that longer dwell time. A third headquarters element has not been identified.
But the official, who spoke on background, would not speculate on whether the alignment would affect other types of units, pointing to the pending assessment report by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan. The assessment had not been made public yet as of Sept. 3.
The move to repeat headquarters rotations to the same areas is based on a concept of “habitual rotation” and aims to take advantage of a unit’s knowledge of a previously familiar environment and increase deployment stability, the Army said in a news release.
The 101st Airborne spent 14 months from April 2008 to June 2009 as CJTF-101 in charge of Regional Command East, a designated area in Afghanistan’s volatile eastern areas including the border with Pakistan, where units assigned to CJTF-82 are operating now.
By Gina Cavallaro - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 4, 2009 15:45:09 EDT
The deployments of the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and the 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade have been extended in Afghanistan to ensure follow-on units have one year at home before deploying next summer, the Army announced Thursday.
The 82nd Airborne Division headquarters, operating in Afghanistan as Combined Joint Task Force-82, will stay for 52 additional days and return in June. The 3rd CAB, based at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga., will begin deploying in October and their stay in Afghanistan will be extended by 14 days beyond the one-year mark.
The 101st Airborne Division headquarters, which returned from Afghanistan in June this year, was slated to deploy in December 2010, but will return to Afghanistan six months earlier than expected, cutting its 18-month dwell time to 12 months. The headquarters will replace the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters in a transfer of authority scheduled for June.
The 3rd CAB, which returned from its last deployment in August 2008, will be replaced by the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Drum, N.Y., which is currently in Iraq and scheduled to begin redeploying in October.
These extensions, which may affect up to 7,000 soldiers, mark the first time since early 2007 that units have had announced extensions while in theater. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shortly after taking his position in January 2007, announced the deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Iraq. He also announced deployments for all units in Iraq and Afghanistan and those deploying before August 2007 would be on 15-month rotations at that time.
At a June 21, 2007, press conference, Gates said further extensions would be for “a worst-case scenario,” and he reiterated the goal to eventually get back to 12-month deployments with 12 months at home, then to a rotation of one year deployed, two years at home.
These latest “adjustments,” according to the Army press release, are to get division headquarters elements in Afghanistan on a better continuity footing at home, allowing them to deploy closer to a ratio of one year away, two years at home.
An Army official indicated there will likely be a third headquarters element that would come into play with the deployment cycles of the 82nd and the 101st to help build in that longer dwell time. A third headquarters element has not been identified.
But the official, who spoke on background, would not speculate on whether the alignment would affect other types of units, pointing to the pending assessment report by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan. The assessment had not been made public yet as of Sept. 3.
The move to repeat headquarters rotations to the same areas is based on a concept of “habitual rotation” and aims to take advantage of a unit’s knowledge of a previously familiar environment and increase deployment stability, the Army said in a news release.
The 101st Airborne spent 14 months from April 2008 to June 2009 as CJTF-101 in charge of Regional Command East, a designated area in Afghanistan’s volatile eastern areas including the border with Pakistan, where units assigned to CJTF-82 are operating now.