82nd Airborne Division

The 82nd Airborne Division is an airborne infantry division of the United States Army specializing in parachute assault operations into denied areas with a U.S. Department of Defense requirement to "respond to crisis contingencies anywhere in the world within 18 hours". Based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd Airborne Division is part of the XVIII Airborne Corps. The 82nd Airborne Division is the U.S. Army's most strategically mobile division. More recently, the 82nd Airborne has been conducting operations in Iraq, advising and assisting Iraqi security forces. The division was constituted, originally as the 82nd Division, in the National Army on 5 August 1917, shortly after the American entry into World War I. It was organized on 25 August 1917, at Camp Gordon, Georgia and later served with distinction on the Western Front in the final months of World War I. Since its initial members came from all 48 states, the division acquired the nickname All-American, which is the basis for its famed "AA" on the shoulder patch. The division later served in World War II where, in August 1942, it was reconstituted as the first airborne division of the U.S. Army and fought in numerous campaigns during the war.

All the way!

All The Way  (motto)

Quotes

• In the draft of 1917, a man from Tennessee
  Overseas to the trenches he went, from the land of the free
  Into war he brought two things along, a rifle and his faith
  Joined the ranks as a private, assigned to 338th
  There on that day
  Alvin York entered the fray
  Saving the day
  82nd all the way!
  • Sabaton, "82nd All the Way" (2019)

• While in Sicily, I re-established an earlier acquaintance with a dynamic young colonel commanding one of the 82d Airborne's parachute infantry regiments, James M. Gavin, who later commanded the division. When the war was over, General Gavin asked my transfer to the division to command the 504th Parachute Infantry. Since I had yearned to be a paratrooper ever since serving at Fort Bragg in proximity to the first American airborne units, I was delighted at the assignment. I learned much from General Gavin in his capacity as a division commander, particularly on leadership qualities and maintaining the morale of the troops. More than any other commander under whom I served, he impressed me with the necessity for a commander to be constantly visible to those he leads.
  • William Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 21

External links

• Encyclopedic article on 82nd Airborne Division on Wikipedia