FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – (CLARKSVILLENOW) It was a beautiful Friday morning at Fort Campbell as 99 soldiers with the 1st Brigade Combat Team were welcomed home from their three-month deployment to Cameroon.
This Welcome Home Ceremony was a little different than most of those in the past. Instead of landing at Campbell Army Airfield, they landed earlier in the day at the Nashville airport and traveled by bus to Fort Campbell due to ongoing construction at the airfield.
One of the returning soldiers, Lieutenant John Yerby, talked about being back home with his family. “It feels great. I’m glad to have these two little kids back around and hopefully I can keep them occupied for a little while, and I’m definitely glad to be back in the cooler weather,” Yerby said.
Yerby added the mission went really well, there were no issues, and he said they got to spend a lot of time building relationships with the Cameroon people.
Task Force Toccoa’s mission was to conduct Base Operations Security-Infrastructure mission at Contingency Location Garoura, Cameroon in order to provide force protection and enhance the U.S. strategic relationships, access and influence in the area.
The 101st “Red Currahees” are assigned to the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment of the “Bastogne” brigade. The troops were the second group of 101st soldiers to participate in this mission, which began in September of 2016 and marked the first conventional elements of the 101st in the history of the division to deploy to Cameroon.