Washington Guard Troops Deployed to Iraq

TACOMA, Wash. - Families, friends and other cheering, stomping, flag-waving supporters flooded the Tacoma Dome during a formal send-off for more than 3,000 state National Guard troops bound for a year in Iraq (news - web sites).

The crowd, bearing handmade signs with messages including "There goes my hero" and "Sgt. McGannon we love you," nearly filled the 15,000 seats set up for them on Saturday.

"This is a wonderful thing we are doing for our troops," said Shirley Jackson of Bellevue, who was seeing off her son-in-law during the deployment ceremony.

The deployment of the 81st Armor Brigade is the biggest for the state's Army National Guard since World War II. Once in Iraq, the unit will replace the 53rd Separate Infantry Brigade, made up of three battalions from the Florida National Guard.

"There's no room for complacency where you are going," said Army Gen. Edward Soriano, commander of nearby Fort Lewis. "Take nothing for granted. Be alert. Your lives and the lives of the soldiers around you depend on it."

"I have no worries," Spc. Joseph Davis said as he waited for his family to find him with his unit, Troop E in the 303rd Cavalry. "I have a mission to do. I'm very confident."

The 4,200-member brigade includes two tank battalions, a mechanized infantry battalion, engineers, support troops, artillery and an intelligence company. Most of the soldiers are from Washington state, but about 1,000 are affiliated troops from California and Minnesota.

The troops have been training since November in an 18-month call up that includes a year in Iraq. Advance units will leave for Kuwait in the next several weeks. The rest of the brigade will be deployed in March after additional training in California's Mojave Desert.

The crowd, bearing handmade signs with messages including "There goes my hero" and "Sgt. McGannon we love you," nearly filled the 15,000 seats set up for them on Saturday.

"This is a wonderful thing we are doing for our troops," said Shirley Jackson of Bellevue, who was seeing off her son-in-law during the deployment ceremony.

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Army National Guard Offical Logo-Centered on a light blue disc edged red, a representation of the Minute Man Statute by Daniel French in bronze detailed black facing to the right, all enclosed by a blue border bearing the words ARMY NATIONAL GUARD at the top and five stars below all in white

Godspeed, 81st Armor Brigade,

Washington State Army National Guard, ping!

(Pretty much the whole article, lol. Thanks, serurier!)
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http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/81inf-bde.htm

81st Armor Brigade (Separate)

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Washington National Guard Units
HHC
1-185 Armor [CA ARNG]
1-303 Armor
1-161 Infantry
898th Engineer Bn
181st Support Bn
2-146 FA
D Co 216th ADA
281st MI Co - Kent
Facilities Seattle, WA

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The federal mission of the 81st Armor Brigade (Separate) is to mobilize and deploy to a theater of operations to conduct combat operations, redeploy, and demobilize. Its state mission is to be prepared for employment in the protection of life and property, and the preservation of peace, order, and public safety, and/or disaster relief operations as required.

The 81st Armor Brigade (Separate), Washington Army National Guard, came into existence (as "straight-leg" infantry) on 1 January 1968 under the command of Brigadier General Albert Kaye. But its origins go back to World War I.

In the process of mobilizing for overseas deployment in 1917, the Army determined that it needed large maneuver formations — divisions. Divisions were formed from existing small units; the 41st Division comprised National Guard elements from eight western states including Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The combat regiments in each division were collected into one artillery and two infantry brigades.

The 41st was one of the earliest divisions to embark for Europe — in December, 1917 — but once there, it was tabbed to train and process replacements to fill out the rosters of other arriving divisions. Additionally, it was tasked as a depot division. While many of its soldiers were reassigned to the front, and its artillery brigade saw action and occupation duty, neither of its infantry brigades saw combat action.

Postwar reconstitution retained the division in the Pacific Northwest and assigned the 81st Brigade, commanding the 161st (Washington) and 163rd (Montana) Infantry Regiments, to Washington. The headquarters circulated around the state to the city of the Brigade commander, moving six times in twelve years. Not until 1936 was a headquarters company activated.

Between the wars, the brigade gained the distinction of procuring, and then recommending for general Army adoption, a unit communications system fabricated by the Spokane Radio Co.

1937 divisional maneuvers preceded the September, 1940 activation for World War II. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the division converted from a "square" (4-regiment) to "triangular" (3-regiment) configuration, losing its 161st Infantry Regiment to the 25th Division. At this point, the component brigades were deleted in favor of the more flexible Regimental Combat Team approach.

It took the demise of the 41st Division to resuscitate the 81st Brigade. In the mid-60s, the Defense Department, under Secretary Robert McNamara, moved seriously toward abolishing the National Guard altogether. As part of the process, the 41st was disbanded. But McNamara’s band of system analysts was thwarted — in part by politics, in part by Vietnam. For many Guard units which had belonged to multi-state divisions, this change meant activation of separate brigades. The 81st in Washington and 41st (not 82nd) in Oregon, picked up the heritage of their respective elements. At this point, the 161st Infantry, which had been restored to the Division upon postwar reactivation in the 1940s, again became the core fighting element of the 81st.

In 1971, a reorganization converted the brigade into mechanized infantry, deleted the 161st’s Second Battalion, and added the 303rd Armor. As the latest DOD concept of Total Force completed the repudiation of McNamara’s failed plan, an "affiliation program" began that linked the units of the brigade (for training) to sister units of the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis. At least one Army officer recalls the partnership between a battalion from the 9th and (future State Adjutant General) LTC Keith Eggan’s 3rd Battalion, 161st Infantry at annual training in 1973 as the very first attempt to implement the concept.

When the 9th became a "high-tech test bed" in the mid-1980s, the affiliation switched to the 4th Infantry Division. Later, the 81st became an asset of I Corps (at Fort Lewis), then assigned as an organic ("roundout") brigade to its old partner the 9th Division. While in that status, it gave up its striking Raven insignia for the division patch. When the 9th Division inactivated, a casualty of the post-Cold War force reduction, the 81st again became a separate brigade, now with a dedicated wartime mission to augment ("roundup") the 2nd Infantry Division in the Republic of Korea.

The 81st normally conducts annual training at Yakima Training Center in Eastern Washington except in 1980 when the eruption of Mt. St. Helen and the subsequent ash-fallout forced training to be moved to Fort Lewis. The Governor has called-up the 81st to State Active Duty on several occasions to protect lives and property from natural disasters; in December, 1975 the 81st fought flood waters during the Snohomish River valley flood, in May, 1980 the eruption of Mt. St. Helens required Guard support, in November, 1990 the "Thanksgiving Day Floods" caused the Governor to declare 19 counties as federal disaster areas, and most recently from late July to early September, 1994 massive forest fires in Eastern Washington. At the height of "Firestorm ‘94" 2,300 81st personnel were fighting fires and providing support for local, state and federal agencies.

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