3rd Infantry Division Operations - Fort Stewart - U.S. Army

16 3rd Infantry Division Operations
enough.
Training was accelerated. The 2nd BCT, like the 1st BCT
before it, conducted a mission rehearsal exercise at Fort Stewart
rather than deploying to the NTC. The CAB continued to support
brigades with their training like it would in Iraq, but it had
no independent training event to ready itself for the upcoming
mission.
The Battle Command Training Program cadre from Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, responsible for drilling the division headquarters,
descended on Wright Army Airfield where a model
headquarters was fashioned in an old maintenance building.
The command and staff huddled over newly issued equipment,
grappled for a plan and an understanding of the battle space, the
land and air above an area of responsibility, that it would assume.
The clock was ticking and the sense of urgency was palpable.
Soldiers were deploying with their equipment first to Truscott Air
Terminal and then to Kuwait immediately after.
By the first week of March, the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat
Team had boots on the ground in Iraq and it was building combat
power in Kuwait. In Georgia, a flag casing ceremony was held
at Marne Garden outside Building 1, the division headquarters,
on March 8th, 2007. Veterans of the Division, including its oldest
living Medal of Honor recipient, COL (Ret.) Charles P. Murray,
local community leaders, media, and Families attended to show
their unwavering support. The ceremony signaled the division's
third deployment in four years. Two weeks later the headquarters
and Special Troops Battalion was deployed. The 2nd Brigade
Combat Team and 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade were readying to
deploy for the coming fight.