The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) —nicknamed the Screaming Eagles— is an air assaultdivision of the United States Army mainly trained for air assaultoperations. During the Vietnam War, the 101st was redesignated an airmobile division, and later as an air assault division. It keeps the identifier "airborne" but does not conduct parachute operations at a division level. Many modern members of the 101st are graduates of the U.S. Army's Air Assault School, and wear the Air Assault Badge, but it is not a prerequisite to be assigned to the division. The division is headquartered at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and is currently serving in Iraq.
General Order Number Six, which gave birth to the division, reads:
The 101st Airborne Division, activated at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, has no history, but it has a rendezvous with destiny. Like the early American pioneers whose invincible courage was the foundation stone of this nation, we have broken with the past and its traditions in order to establish our claim to the future.
Due to the nature of our armament, and the tactics in which we shall perfect ourselves, we shall be called upon to carry out operations of far-reaching military importance and we shall habitually go into action when the need is immediate and extreme.
Let me call your attention to the fact that our badge is the great American eagle. This is a fitting emblem for a division that will crush its enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies.
The history we shall make, the record of high achievement we hope to write in the annals of the American Army and the American people, depends wholly and completely on the men of this division. Each individual, each officer and each enlisted man, must therefore regard himself as a necessary part of a complex and powerful instrument for the overcoming of the enemies of the nation. Each, in his own job, must realize that he is not only a means, but an indispensable means for obtaining the goal of victory. It is, therefore, not too much to say that the future itself, in whose molding we expect to have our share, is in the hands of the soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division.
101st Airborne troops retrieving air dropped supplies during the Battle of Bastogne
During the Battle of the Bulge the 101st, as one of the few forces available to contain the German advance was rushed forward to defend the vital road junction of Bastogne. Famously, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe answered the German demand for surrender with the reply "To the German Commander: NUTS! -The American Commander" and the division fought on until the siege was lifted and the German advance halted.
For their efforts during World War II, the 101st Airborne Division was awarded four campaign streamers and two Presidential Unit Citations. The division suffered 1,766 Killed In Action; 6,388 Wounded In Action; and 324 Died of Wounds during World War II.
The 101st is made famous partly by their helmet decorations. The soldiers used card suits (diamonds, spades, hearts, and clubs) to indicate the regiment to which they belonged.
These insignias were first seen in WWII, and can still be seen on 101st Division soldiers today.
The 101st Airborne Division was reactivated as a training unit at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, in 1948 and again in 1950. It was reactivated again in 1954 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and in March 1956, the 101st was transferred, less personnel and equipment, to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to be reorganized as a combat division.
In the mid-1960s, the 1st Brigade and support troops were deployed to the Republic of Vietnam, followed by the rest of the division in late 1967. In almost seven years of combat in Vietnam, elements of the 101st participated in 15 campaigns. Notable among these were the Battle of Hamburger Hill in 1969 and Firebase Ripcord in 1970. The 101st was deployed in the northern I Corps region operating against the NVA infiltration routes through Laos and the A Shau Valley. Elements of the division supported the ARVNOperation Lam Son 719, the invasion of southern Laos, in 1971, but only aviation units actually entered Laos. In the seven years that all or part of the division served in Vietnam it suffered 4,011 Killed In Action and 18,259 Wounded In Action.
In 1968, the 101st took on the structure and equipment of an airmobile division. Today, the 101st stands as the Army's and the world's only air assault division with unequaled strategic and tactical mobility. In 1974, the training of the 101st was recognized with the creation of the Air Assault Badge, now a service wide decoration of the United States Army.
Post-Vietnam
Tragedy struck the division on December 12, 1985. A civilian aircraft, Arrow Air Flight 1285, chartered to transport some of the division from peacekeeping duty with the Multinational Force Observers on the Sinai Peninsula to Kentucky, crashed near Gander, Newfoundland. All eight air crew members and 248 US servicemen died, most were from the 3d Battalion, 502d Infantry. The crash was the worst in Canadian aviation history. President Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy travelled to Fort Campbell to comfort grieving family members.
Persian Gulf War
In January 1991, the 101st once again had its "Rendezvous with Destiny" in Iraq during the combat air assault into enemy territory. The 101st sustained no soldiers killed in action during the 100-hour war and captured thousands of enemy prisoners of war.
The division has supported humanitarian relief efforts in Rwanda and Somalia, then later supplied peacekeepers to Haiti and Bosnia.
Iraq War
The division was deployed once again to Iraq in 2003 as part of the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom). The division was in V Corps, providing support to the 3rd Infantry Division by clearing Iraqi strongpoints which that division had bypassed. The Division then went on to a tour of duty as part of the occupation forces of Iraq, using the city of Mosul as their primary base of operations, before being withdrawn in early 2004 for rest and refit. As part of the Army's modular transformation, the existing infantry brigades, artillery brigade, and aviation brigades were transformed. The Army also re-activated the 4th Brigade Combat Team (known as "Currahee", and not active since World War II) and its subordinate units, to form a 6-7 major units division, one of the largest currently in the U.S. Army, in preparation to redeploy in fall 2005 to Iraq.
The division's second deployment to Iraq began in the late summer of 2005. The division headquarters replaced the 42nd Infantry Division, which had been directing security operations as the headquarters for Task Force Liberty. Renamed Task Force Band of Brothers, the 101st assumed responsibility on November 1, 2005 for four provinces in north central Iraq: Salah ad Din, Kirkuk, Diyala and As Sulymaniyah. On December 30, 2005, Task Force Band of Brothers also assumed responsibility for training Iraqi security forces and conducting security operations in Ninevah and Dahuk provinces as the headquarters for Task Force Freedom was disestablished.
During the second deployment, 2nd and 4th Brigades of the 101st Airborne Division were assigned to conduct security operations under the command of Task Force Baghdad, led initially by 3rd Infantry Division, which was replaced by 4th Infantry Division.
On March 20, 2006, The New York Times reported that "Police investigators in Salahudin Province have accused American troops of executing 11 civilians, including several children, during a raid last Wednesday on a house in Ishaqi, near Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad." On June 2,BBC News reported this again as video tape emerged a few weeks after Haditha revelations. On June 19, the US military announced that three soldiers of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Private First ClassCorey R. Clagett, SpecialistWilliam B. Hunsaker and Staff SergeantRaymond L. Girouard, are being charged in connection of the deaths of three male detainees in an operation near a canal north of Baghdad on May 9. On June 21, a fourth soldier was charged.
In July of 2006, five troopers were charged in connection with the rape and murder of an Iraqi teenager, and the murder of three of her family members. The incident took place in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Previously, an arrest in the case was also made in June of 2006 when former trooper Steven D. Green was apprehended in North Carolina.
The 502d Infantry Regiment appear in the video games [[Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30]] and its sequel, [[Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood]]. Players participate in historical actions such as the D-Day parachute drops and the capture of Carentan and St. Savoeur.
The 502d Infantry Regiment was the subject of a documentary series produced by the History ChannelBrothers in Arms: The Untold Story of The 502. This series used the 3D video game engine from the Brothers in Arms game to render graphics to tell the story of the unit's ordeal during the war, accompanied by interviews, narration, and traditional archival footage and photos.
The computer gameCall of Duty and its expansion [[Call of Duty: United Offensive]] portrays actions of the 101st Airborne in World War II.
