Lee Erwin reporting
lerwin@clarksvillenow.com
Fort Campbell, KY. – 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team “Strike”, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) held a Color Casing Ceremony Thursday, January 23 as they prepare for their upcoming nine month deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
See photos here
The colors are the flag that represents the unit on the battlefield, and casing it symbolizes the brigade is prepared for movement. The Commander of the 2nd Brigade, Colonel Peter Benchoff, said roughly half of the brigade will deploy which is just under 2,000 Soldiers and added that there are a variety of missions involved with the deployment.
“We are doing the advisory mission that we did in 2012, but in this deployment we’ve got our security forces as part of the brigade whereas before we provided just advisors. So now we provide the advisors plus we provide the security forces for them,” said Benchoff.
Colonel Benchoff praised the 2nd Brigade Soldiers and family members remaining at Fort Campbell. “It’s the families and the Soldiers, we can’t do this we cannot deploy this brigade six times without the full support of the families and the community. This is a great place to be a Soldier because you know your family is going to be taken care of when you deploy,’ Benchoff said.