More than 140 soldiers with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell yesterday after a six-month deployment in Afghanistan.
Yesterday’s return also marked the end of the unit, one of 10 brigade combat teams the Army is shutting down.
The Army announced this week that budget cuts are speeding those shutdowns, forcing the military to decommission units by 2015 instead of the originally-planned 2017. The Army plans to reduce its fighting force from about 570,000 to 490,000.
The reorganization will affect about 3,500 Fort Campbell soldiers and families. Most soldiers will get new positions at Fort Campbell, but about 320 soldiers will be reassigned somewhere else.
The brigade traces its lineage to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment at Camp Toccoa, Georgia. The 506th was created in 1942 and was among several parachute regiments created during WWII. The regiment is nicknamed “Currahee”, a Native American Cherokee term for “stands alone”.