[Solson]

They're lightly armored but they are an attack force. In GWI they were 13 miles into Iraq a couple of days before the ground war began. They were used to get on the ground, kill bad guys, secure locations and then get back out.

Where the 82nd and 173rd still use fixed wings for deployment(need verification) the 101st uses choppers to come in low and fast typically supported by Apache's, Blackhawks and Cobra's.

In GWI, the 101st had many Iraqi's surrender to their choppers...before troops arrived.

[CasearianDaoist]

Only the USMC uses Cobras now.