Colorado Springs – Moving from the mountains of South Korea to the deserts of Iraq, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team now plans to set down new roots at Fort Carson.
The 4,000-strong unit unfurled its flags Thursday afternoon in a ceremony at Fort Carson to symbolize its emotional return home, said Col. Gary S. Patton, unit commander.
Now that they’re all home, the soldiers will get training and new equipment as part of a directive from U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to get military units to move more quickly and be lighter on its feet, Patton said.
“What we bring is 4,000 combat veterans. What we’re going to be is a transforming unit,” Patton said. “We find ourselves on the lighter side of things. We’re decreasing our weight.”
Spec. James Gale, 20, is one of those on the front lines of the change. The weapons specialist knows he’s going to be part of a light infantry division in the future.
“We know that we’re getting rid of a lot of tracked vehicles,” Gale said. “Fort Carson is not heavily mechanized.”
Rumsfeld’s push to rely more on wheeled transportation such as Brad ley fighting vehicles in conflicts around the world and less on the M-1 Abrams tank has met with resistance in some quarters of the U.S. military.
Patton said 2nd Brigade Combat Team troops were on the cutting edge of the U.S. Army’s rapid deployment in Iraq. But so much moving around in recent years took its toll on soldiers’ families, Patton said.
“Coming out of a war zone is a difficult challenge, with soldiers being separated from their families for so long,” Patton said. “We wanted to ease the soldiers back into their families. The entire unit had a block leave of one month.”
Pam Beagle, wife of Maj. Milford Beagle, who recently came home from Iraq, moved three times in the past two years – the last time to be with her family in South Carolina while her husband was in Iraq.
“This is one of the nicer places we’ve been,” Maj. Beagle said. “We hope to get settled and see more of the sights and get in touch with the community.”
The brigade saw some of the highest number of casualties of any Army unit deployed to Iraq so far – 98 troops, including 30 U.S. Marines attached to the unit, were killed; another 900 or so were wounded. Soldiers killed an estimated 2,100 insurgents – many of whom claimed allegiance with al-Qaeda, Patton said.
“It was a very vicious location we were in,” said Sgt. 1st Class Brian Sutton, a spokesman, talking about the unit’s base in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold in al-Anbar province of central Iraq. “Statistically, it was very significant.”
