First living Iraq War MOH recipient

In the most harrowing days of the Iraq War, one Army noncommissioned officer distinguished himself when he rescued an infantry squad pinned down by machine gun fire as they went door-to-door clearing insurgent strongholds. That battle, on Nov. 10, 2004, made former Staff Sgt. David Bellavia the Iraq War’s first living recipient of the military’s highest award for valor, bestowed by President Trump on Tuesday at a White House ceremony.

“America’s blessed with the heroes and great people, like Staff Sgt. Bellavia, whose intrepid spirit and unwavering resolve defeats our enemies, protects our freedoms and defends our great American flag," Trump said. "David, today we honor your extraordinary courage, we salute your selfless service and we thank you for carrying on the legacy of American valor that has always made our blessed nation the strongest and mightiest anywhere in the world ? and we’re doing better today than we have ever done.”

Bellavia’s A Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, was in the midst of the weeks-long Operation Phantom Fury, also known as the second Battle of Fallujah. “The first thing you’re thinking about is, I mean, you’re scared,” he told reporters Monday. “Your life is on the line. The second thing you’re thinking about is, you’re angry. How dare anyone try to hurt us? How dare you try to step up against the United States military?”

On Nov. 9, his battalion’s top enlisted leader, Command Sgt. Maj. Steven Faulkenburg, died in a direct-fire attack. “But the other thing is, you have people that they day before, risked their life to save you,” Bellavia said. “You have people the following two days would risk their lives to save you. And you have people within 24 hours who are killed in direct fire attacks that are your senior leadership.”

On Nov. 13, company commander Capt. Sean Sims was killed by small-arms fire during another mission to clear buildings. Their families joined Bellavia’s at the ceremony Tuesday, along with three others killed during the operation. All of that pushed him to step up in the moment, he said, when he had the choice to either wait outside the building for back-up, or go in again and take on the half-dozen insurgents he knew were inside. “What he did, going back into that nightmare, saved all those men’s lives,” journalist Michael Ware, who was embedded with the unit while writing for Time Magazine, told reporters.

Bellavia credited Ware, whom he previously considered a nuisance, with giving him the confidence to take on the house alone. “Peer pressure might make you smoke cigarettes when you’re 13, but peer pressure might also make you do things you wouldn’t do,” he said. “It’s who your peers are.”

Bellavia was nominated for the Medal of Honor in early 2005, his former company commander told reporters, but it was downgraded to a Silver Star. Then, seven months ago, Trump called him to let him know an upgrade had come through ? the result of a Defense Department-mandated review of Global War on Terror valor awards.

“For 15 years, people that heard about Fallujah or heard about Baqubah…now, they look into this unit, they look into what happened, what we did,” he said. “This is a snapshot of our year. And now they look back and say, wow, there were examples every single day of what people are sacrificing for this way of life.”

Reflecting on the recent 75th anniversary of D Day, he made a plug for his own peer group. “This is an all-volunteer force…college debt repayment, a dental plan, a paycheck? There’s no reason that a rational person is paying off college to clear a road with IEDs. We are not kicking down doors because we want to make sure we get paid on the first and the 15th,” he said. “That is what has kept this country free and it’s why we’re going to be safe for generations to come. "I think of that generation and the Iraq War and I’m mighty proud to be part of it.”

Article from the Army Times

1st Ranger Battalion racks ups the Terrorists kills

The 1st Ranger Battalion’s members ran 198 combat missions that resulted in 1,900 terrorists killed or captured in their most recent deployment. After the deployment, 14 of the Rangers recently received valor awards.

Maj. Gen. Mark Schwartz, deputy commanding general of U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, presented the awards at a ceremony earlier this month at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, according to an Army release. “It is truly an honor to serve with men like you,” Schwartz told them.

The First Ranger Battalion has deployed 22 times in support of the Global War on Terrorism, Schwartz said. During the deployment, the battalion took part in 198 combat operations in which 1,900 terrorists were killed or captured. Master Sgt. Phillip Paquette received a Silver Star Medal, the third highest valor award. The 17-year Army veteran has spent his entire career with the 75th Ranger Regiment and commanded a joint task force in Afghanistan.

During an enemy engagement on April 25, 2018, Paquette, “selflessly and with little regard for his own personal safety, exposed himself to enemy fire several times in order to retrieve a casualty, suppress the enemy by direct fire and delivered several danger-close aerial munitions,” according to the citation.

His actions allowed the assault force to eliminate the enemy and move the unit to the helicopter landing zone to be flown out. “Though the award is an individual award, it’s all about the men serving with me,” Paquette said. “We won’t leave anyone behind. We do what we do for the person to the left and to the right wearing tan berets and scrolls on our left and right sleeves. Serving as a Ranger is a lifelong relationship.”


Schwartz awarded eight Bronze Star medals for valor during the ceremony, including two to Staff Sgt. Nicolas Volk-Perez and he presented one to the 8-year-old Shannon Celez, daughter of Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz, who gave his life during the deployment.

Celiz was killed in action on July 12, 2018 in Paktiya province. The 32-year-old was assigned to Company D, 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at the time of his death. “The 75th Ranger Regiment suffered a tremendous loss with the passing of Sgt. 1st Class Chris Celiz. The Celiz family has been a critical component of our team and their community in Savannah, Georgia,” said Col. Brandon Tegtmeier, commander of 75th Ranger Regiment at the time of Celiz’ death. “Chris was a national treasure who led his Rangers with passion, competence, and an infectiously positive attitude no matter the situation. He will be greatly missed.”

Five Rangers received Joint Service Commendation Medals for valor and three were presented Purple Heart medals. The two-star attributed JSOC’s operational tempo as being responsible for “the ongoing dialogue with the Taliban.”

Article from the Army Times

Green Beret say's: U.S. Fighting 100 Year War

Waltz explained that, while US Special Forces were trained and prepared as combat warriors, much of their work involved training, cultural understanding and psychological efforts to explain the messages of US freedom and humanity. “Until America is prepared to have its grandchildren stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our grandchildren, we won’t be successful,” -- Mullah Ghafoordai - tribal elder in Eastern Afghanistan.

It was a profound and decisive moment – which seemed to reverberate throughout mountain villages in Eastern Afghanistan…… an anti-Taliban Afghan tribal elder told Green Beret Michael Waltz he could no longer cooperate with US Special Forces in the fight against insurgents in his country. Waltz had spent months having tea with friendly Afghans and tribal leaders in the area and, he reports, made great progress with efforts to collaborate against the Taliban. They shared information, allowed US allied Afghan fighters to be trained by Green Berets and, in many cases, joined US forces in the fight.

The tribal elder’s comments were quite a disappointment for Waltz, who vigorously argues that the fight against the Taliban, terrorists and many insurgent groups around the world – will take 100 years to win.

Waltz recalled that President Obama’s 2009 announcement that the US would be withdrawing from Afghanistan by 2011, engendered new risk and danger for Afghans cooperating with US forces. Although, in the same speech, Obama announced US troop numbers would increase by thousands in the near term, a declaration of an ultimate withdrawal created a strong impact upon friendly Afghans, Waltz said.

Obama’s announcement, which has been followed by subsequent efforts to further draw-down the US presence, changed the equation on the ground in Afghanistan, compromising the long-standing cooperation between the friendly Afghan tribal elder and Waltz’s team of Green Berets in fight against the Taliban, Waltz argued. “It is going to take multiple generations of winning hearts and minds,” Waltz recalled, explaining his frustration and disappointment upon seeing a long-standing collaborative partnership collapse amid fear of Taliban retribution.

Although much has happened regarding permutation of the US-Afghan strategy since that time, and specifics of Obama’s intended withdrawal date subsequently changed, there has been an overall systematic reduction of US troops in recent years. During July 6, 2016 U.S. President Obama said he would draw down troops to 8,400 by the end of his administration in December 2016; this approach greatly increased pressure on US Special Forces, relying even more intensely upon their role as trainers and advisors.

Green Berets had already been among the most-deployed US military units, often deploying as many as 10-times throughout the course of their career. “Green Berets don’t easily ask for help and do not easily identify themselves as having an issue, but it is OK to say you have a problem. The Green Beret Foundation understands the mindset of “America’s Quiet Professionals”, and because of this, we are in a good position to help identify needs and render assistance,” said Ret. Maj. Gen. David Morris, Chairman of the Board of the Green Beret Foundation.

While there have been many who both supported and opposed Obama’s Afghanistan strategy, sparking years of ongoing debate, Waltz maintains that impact of the 2009 announcement upon the US Special Forces’ effort in Afghanistan brought lasting implications and spoke to a larger issue regarding US-Afghan policy. “We are in a war of ideas and we are fighting an ideology. It is easy to bomb a tank, but incredibly difficult to bomb an idea. We need a long-term strategy that discredits the ideology of Islamic extremism,” Waltz added. “We are in a multi-decade war and we are only 15-years in.”

Waltz explained that, while US Special Forces were trained and prepared as combat warriors, much of their work involved training, cultural understanding and psychological efforts to explain the messages of US freedom and humanity. “This was kind of the premise behind George W. Bush’s freedom agenda. These ideologies have narratives that specifically target disaffected young men who see no future for themselves or their families,” Waltz explained.

Some of the many nuances behind this approached were, quite naturally, woven into a broader, long-term vision for the country including the education of girls and economic initiatives aimed at cultivating mechanisms for sustainable Afghan prosperity. The reality of a multi-faceted, broadly oriented counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is the premise of Waltz’s book - “Warrior Diplomat,” which seeks to delineate key aspects of his time as a Green Beret. The book chronicles this effort to attack Taliban fighters with so-called “kinetic” or intense combat techniques – alongside an equally intense commensurate effort to launch an entirely different type of attack.

Diplomatic or “non-kinetic” elements of the war effort involved what could be referred to as war-zone diplomacy, making friends with anti-Taliban fighters, learning and respecting Afghan culture, and teaching them how to succeed in combat. “While Green Berets perform direct combat missions, their core mission as the only Unconventional Warfare unit in the US inventory, is to train, coach, teach and mentor others. A 12-man A-Team can train a force of 1,000 - 2,000 fighters and bring them up to an acceptable measure of combat readiness. If you stop and think about it, that is 1,000 to 2,000 of our sons and daughters who do not have to go to war because of this training,” Morris said.

Addressing the issue of cultural sophistication, Morris explained how Green Berets are required to demonstrate proficiency in at least one foreign language. Citing the Taliban, ISIS and historic insurgent groups such as Peru’s Shining Path – and even the decades-long Cold War effort to discredit communism, Waltz emphasizes that the need for a trans-generational, wide-ranging approach of this kind is by no means unprecedented.

Article from The National Interest

3 Green Berets from 5th SF Group Killed in Jordan

The Pentagon has identified the three Special Forces soldiers supporting the anti-Islamic State coalition who died after their convoy came under fire on Friday while entering a military base in Jordan.

The Green Berets were identified in a statement released Sunday as Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27. All three were assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Campbell, Ky., and were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve. See photo below, from left to right: Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27.

The incident is under investigation, the military said. The U.S. Special Operations Command said in a statement that all three of the decorated soldiers killed in the attack had served multiple overseas tours.

Lewellen, a native of Lawrence, Kan., had more than six years of service in the Army and was serving his second overseas tour. Among his awards were a Bronze Star Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal.

Tucson native McEnroe was an eight-year Army veteran on his third overseas tour. His awards include the Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal and Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal.

Hailing from Kerrville, Texas, Moriarty, had more than five years of service in the Army. This was his second overseas tour. His awards include the Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

The deaths bring to seven the number of Americans killed in action since the start of the anti-Islamic State mission in 2014.

Article from Stars and Stripes

Obama’s ‘Boots on the Ground’: Green Berets Are Sent to Tackle Global Threats

They are taking on a larger combat role in Afghanistan, where the war was supposed to be over. They are headed to Syria to help fight the Islamic State in its stronghold. And President Obama recently ordered nearly 300 of them to Cameroon to assist African troops in their battle against a militant group that has pledged loyalty to the Islamic State.

With the Middle East in tumult, radical groups holding swaths of territory in Africa, and a presidential campaign fanning fears of a growing terrorism threat, the White House has steadily expanded the global missions of American Special Operations troops.

Even as Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he opposes American “boots on the ground” in far-flung parts of the world, his administration continues to carve out exceptions for Special Operations forces — with American officials often resorting to linguistic contortions to mask the forces’ combat role.

The Obama administration long ago showed its inclination to rely on Special Operations troops and clandestine missions as an alternative to large wars of occupation. But the spread of the Islamic State over the past year — from its hubs in Syria and Iraq to affiliates in Africa and South Asia — has led the White House to turn to elite troops to try to snuff out crises in numerous locations.

These deployments, as well as other missions being considered, have upended the Obama administration’s goal of withdrawing from countries that for more than a decade have been crucibles of combat for the American military.

The White House is now considering a Pentagon proposal to maintain at least one base in Afghanistan for years to come, according to American military officials. Senior officials spoke about issues related to Special Operations forces only on the condition of anonymity because most of the specifics of their missions are classified.

This plan would run counter to Mr. Obama’s original pledge to remove all troops from Afghanistan except for a counterterrorism force and the troops guarding the United States Embassy in Kabul. Mr. Obama revised his withdrawal plans in October, saying that about 5,500 troops would remain in the country through the end of his term in early 2017.

The proposal would use that Afghanistan base as a hub for Special Operations troops and intelligence operatives throughout Central and South Asia, part of a larger network of bases the Pentagon is envisioning in part to tackle the Islamic State and its more than half-dozen affiliates in countries like Libya, Egypt and Yemen.

Special Operations officers are gaining influence elsewhere in the administration’s fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, even as discussions of expanding their role threaten to reinvigorate historical rivalries with the military’s conventional forces and with other parts of the government.

In another new initiative, the State Department is poised to expand its long-faltering campaign to counter the Islamic State’s propaganda machine, and one of the candidates being considered to lead the effort is Michael D. Lumpkin, a retired member of the Navy SEALs who is the Pentagon’s top Special Operations policy official.

The effort to overhaul the agency responsible for countering Islamic State messaging, the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, could draw on Mr. Lumpkin’s understanding of covert operations to improve the State Department’s efforts.

During the peak of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly 13,000 Special Operations forces were deployed on missions across the globe, but a large majority were assigned to those two countries. Now, roughly half of the 7,500 elite troops overseas are posted outside the Middle East or South Asia, operating in 85 countries, according to the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM).

There is other, subtler, evidence of the sway of senior Special Operations officers.

When Mr. Obama appeared before reporters in the Pentagon briefing room this month to discuss his administration’s strategy for fighting the Islamic State in Syria, he was flanked by a coterie of top national security officials, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Standing beside them was Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the Special Operations Command, whose presence raised eyebrows at the Pentagon.

The threat from the Islamic State has become more prominent in the presidential campaign since the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., and many candidates have proclaimed a need for more Special Operations troops to be deployed far and wide. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, has talked about embedding Special Operations troops with Iraqi soldiers on the front lines, and Hillary Clinton said she would consider sending more special operators to Syria than the 50 that Mr. Obama recently authorized to assist rebels fighting Islamic State.

These calls for more American Special Operations troops have come even as some of the same candidates said they opposed boots on the ground in places such as Syria. Mr. Obama himself tried to draw a distinction during an interview this month with CBS News, when a reporter asked if recent Special Operations deployments in Iraq and Syria meant that he was reversing his pledge.

“You know, when I said, ‘No boots on the ground,’ I think the American people understood generally that we’re not going to do an Iraq-style invasion of Iraq or Syria with battalions that are moving across the desert,” he said.

Defense Secretary Carter, in a discussion this month about a new deployment of as many as 200 troops, including scores of Special Operations forces, to Iraq to conduct raids and gather intelligence, spoke in Pentagon jargon. He called it a “specialized expeditionary targeting force.”

Senior American officials disagree on what exactly these troops will be doing, with top aides to Mr. Obama playing down any fighting role. “This is not a combat mission,” one senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal directives to the Pentagon. “This is to enable partners.”

But in a conference call with reporters on Dec. 2, Col. Steven H. Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said, “I mean, a raid is a combat operation. There is no way around that. So, yeah, more Americans will be coming here to Iraq, and some of them will be conducting raids inside of both Iraq and Syria.”

Critics say using Special Operations troops this way is a half-step.

“The problem is that the expeditionary targeting force can easily become a waste of U.S. blood and money,” Anthony H. Cordesman, a senior analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote recently. “The Obama administration reacts to every new problem with ISIS by making a limited increase in military force that is too little and too late.”

The same criticism has been leveled at the administration’s decision to send up to 50 Special Operations forces to advise and assist rebels against the Islamic State in eastern Syria.

The White House is also relying on Special Operations troops elsewhere. About half of the 3,500 American forces in Afghanistan are special operators and have recently fought pitched battles in Helmand Province against the Taliban.

Mr. Obama announced in October that he had ordered 300 troops, most of them special operators, to Cameroon to work with soldiers from Cameroon, Chad, Benin, Niger and Nigeria to counter the Nigeria-based extremist group Boko Haram. The American troops, Mr. Obama said, would provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the region, largely by operating unarmed surveillance drones. The troops would not engage in combat, he said.

As these deployments widen, General Dunford recently directed the Special Operations Command, or SOCOM to update for the first time in several years its role in coordinating a global response by commandos to terrorist activities — with a particular eye on the Islamic State. The directive has echoes of an effort begun more than a decade ago by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to put SOCOM in charge of the global hunt for Qaeda operatives.

That effort was thwarted in part by regional military commanders who bristled at losing their autonomy in the areas they oversaw. Now, as the influence of the Islamic State spreads, some military experts think SOCOM is well suited to the mission.

“Regional solutions will be limited solutions, thus the need for a global approach, led by SOCOM as the motivating force behind a global network to defeat the Islamic State,” said James G. Stavridis, a former four-star admiral who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts.

But others are less certain, seeing peril in trying to fight the Islamic State with a military-centric model similar to the one adopted to combat Al Qaeda.

“This is an inordinately more complex situation than with Al Qaeda after 9/11,” said Jeffrey W. Eggers, a former Navy SEAL who worked on national security affairs at the Obama White House and is now a fellow at the New America Foundation. “We need a little humility about Socom’s ability to get its arms all the way around this problem.”

Article by the New York Times

U.S. Special Operations Forces struggle with record Suicides

From a Reuters article, posted April 17, 2014.

Chapter IX Commo Sgt comment: The original title of this article was "U.S. Special Forces struggle with record Suicides", while all military or veteran suicides are tragic, especially if fueled by what the Country has asked these service members to do, I think this article mostly pertains to units in SOF other than Army Special Forces, which is a common national press problem in identifying or delineating SF from other SOF unit.

Suicides among U.S. special operations forces, including elite Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, are at record levels, a U.S. military official said on Thursday, citing the effects of more than a decade of "hard combat."

The number of special operations forces committing suicide has held at record highs for the past two years, said Admiral William McRaven, who leads the Special Operations Command. "And this year, I am afraid, we are on path to break that," he told a conference in Tampa. "My soldiers have been fighting now for 12, 13 years in hard combat. Hard combat. And anybody that has spent any time in this war has been changed by it. It's that simple."

"It may take a year or more", McRaven said, "to assess the effects of sustained combat on special operations units, whose missions range from strikes on militants such as the 2011 SEAL raid that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden to assisting in humanitarian disasters."

He did not provide data on the suicide rate, which the U.S. military has been battling to lower. In 2012, for example, more active duty servicemen and servicewomen across the U.S. armed forces died by suicide - an estimated 350 - than died in combat, a U.S. defense official said. That trend appears to have held in 2013 although preliminary data is showing a slight improvement, with 284 suicides among active duty forces in the year to December 15, the official added.

McRaven's command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, oversees elite commandos operating in 84 countries. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps special operations commands comprise about 59,000 people, according to Pentagon documents.

Special operations forces have been lionized in popular culture in recent years, in movies such as "Zero Dark Thirty," about the hunt for bin Laden, "Lone Survivor", and "Act of Valor," as well as a National Geographic special.

Chapter IX Commo Sgt comment: For the record - the above referenced movies are all of Navy SEALS and not Army Special Forces.  This is a source of debate in the Special Forces community where members often discuss the SF practice to be quiet professionals and NOT to draw attention to ourselves, as opposed to exploit various media to enhance notoriety.     

Kim Ruocco, who assists the survivors of military members who commit suicide, said members of the closely knit special operations community often fear that disclosing their symptoms will end their careers. Additionally, the shrinking size of the U.S. armed forces has put additional pressure on soldiers, whose sense of community and self-identity is often closely tied to their military service, said Ruocco, director of suicide prevention programs for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, an advocacy group for military families.

101st Airborne marks 70th anniversary

From an article entitled: Storied 101st Airborne marks 70th anniversary by Kristin M. Hall of the Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — After months of grueling road marches through the north Georgia mountains, a group of elite paratroopers had to put their training to the test in a trial by fire. They leapt from an airplane, bullets whizzing past parachutes and shrapnel pelting the plane's side panels.

Ed Shames was among them. Now 90, Shames was 19 when he signed up for new parachute units created military leaders who wanted a quicker, more aggressive unit that could sneak behind enemy lines in Europe.

This week, thousands of active-duty soldiers and veterans are gathering at Fort Campbell, Ky., to honor the 101st Airborne Division that was created by the military 70 years ago, even as its current soldiers prepare to leave for Afghanistan. Military officials at first weren't so sure the 101st "Screaming Eagles" would find success.

And the day Shames first saw combat turned out to be one of the most crucial in U.S. history — the D-Day invasion of France. "They prophesized that we were going to fall on our faces, from the very beginning," he said. On August 16, 1942, the Army created the first paratrooper divisions, with the nation still reeling from Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

The 101st Airborne Division and the Fort Bragg, N.C.-based 82nd Airborne Division would go on to redefine war strategies from World War II to Vietnam to the Middle East. The Week of the Eagles is commemorating that legacy with games, a concert, an air show and memorials to the fallen, with each day dedicated to the major wars that have created the unique legacy of the Screaming Eagles.

The event culminates with a division review on the parade field. The first commanding general of the 101st, Maj. Gen. William C. Lee, said his men had no history but had a "rendezvous with destiny." The Army wanted physically fit, aggressive young men who were a "cut above the rest," said the division's historian, Capt. Jim Page. Among them was Shames, of Norfolk, Va. He and other paratroopers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment earned their tough reputation by making daily road marches up Currahee Mountain in Georgia. "

A 25-mile march for us was just like a Sunday stroll," said Shames, who now lives in Virginia Beach. "We had to walk 10 to 12 miles to get to our training area at Toccoa and then train all day and walk back 10 or 12 miles back to camp every day." He recounted D-Day, as the Allied planes crossed into Normandy and started taking heavy artillery fire. "You could hear the shrapnel hitting against the side of the plane and when we jumped out, you could hear the bullets coming through the parachutes," Shames said.

Expecting that the paratroopers would get scattered, the division's regiments drew playing card symbols — the spade, the club, the heart and the diamond — on their helmets so that they could identify each other once on the ground. Shames said the paratroopers were successful in their mission of capturing key bridges to prevent German tanks from reaching the shore as amphibious troops made their landing.

But it came at a cost, Page said: The 101st lost about a third of its men in only about six weeks. The division then went on to suffer more casualties in Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands. Herbert Suerth II joined the Easy Company, whose exploits have been made into books and a TV series, as a replacement soldier right before the division went on to fight in the Battle of the Bulge. "When I joined the 101st, the discipline, the tempo, everything changed, and it was refreshing," said Suerth, who is now 86 and jokes he is the president of the Men of Easy Company Association because he is the youngest member.

As the unit made its way to establish a perimeter in the pine woods around the town of Bastogne in Belgium, they could hear the artillery rounds and small arms fire of the approaching German divisions, he said. "In between us and the German advance were hundreds of American infantry guys literally running," he said. "They had been overrun by a couple of German divisions." When the Germans demanded that the division surrender after surrounding the town, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe responded with one word: "NUTS!" The division held that town until just after Christmas when reinforcements arrived.

After the war ended, the division was deactivated in 1945 as the Army shrunk to a post-war size. The division was reactivated as a combat unit in 1956 at Fort Campbell. It would not again see combat again until the Vietnam War, although one of its current units served in the Korean War.

In the summer of 1965, 4,000 troops from the 101st traveled for weeks by boat across the Pacific Ocean. John Pagel was a private first class and among the first division soldiers who stepped off the boat in Camh Ran Bay in Vietnam. The brigade was sent all over South Vietnam to clear out Viet Cong fighters, said Pagel, who is now 68 and living in Glendora, Calif.

It was during this war that the division's troops began shifting from jumping out of a plane to jumping out of helicopters. He had no experience in one before his first chopper assault, he said. "Ninety-five percent of the troops of the 101st had not even sat in a helicopter before Vietnam, so we had to learn," Pagel said.

Later in 1967, the rest of the division would deploy to Vietnam, where they would remain until 1972. Page said records captured during the war showed the North Vietnamese Army warned troops to be cautious when encountering the "chicken men," referring to the division's bald eagle patch.

Today, the 101st remains the Army's only air assault division. After the Cold War, the division was sent on peacekeeping missions in countries such as Somalia and Bosnia and saw combat in the first Gulf War and the most recent Iraq War.

The post-9/11 decade has brought constant deployment rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, with many current day troops serving between two and five tours. Even with this week's celebrations, the division still has wartime obligations. One of its helicopter units is deploying to Afghanistan, and another infantry brigade is scheduled to leave later this year. They're fighting a different type of enemy than the men who landed on Normandy, with new technology and on different terrain.

But the division has adapted over the years, Page said. "Soldiers of the 101st, whether in World War II or in 2025, can expect that they will be placed at the forefront of America's contingency operations wherever that may be," Page said.