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President Bush's plan to bring home up to 70,000 troops from Europe and Asia in the next decade is significant both strategically and historically. It is also long overdue. "For decades, America's armed forces abroad have essentially remained where the wars of the last century ended, in Europe and Asia," Bush said, in announcing the Global Defense Posture Review. He said the nation must have "a more agile and more flexible" force that can respond rapidly to threats that can develop quickly anywhere in the world. The United States stations about 106,000 military personnel in Europe and 100,000 in Asia,...

US already moving on pullout of DMZ as larger troop cuts loom in South Korea By Associated Press Wednesday, June 9, 2004 PANMUNJOM, Korea (AP) — The U.S. military is on track to pull almost all of its troops from their last outpost on the tense border with North Korea by October, a U.S. Army officer said Wednesday, amid discord over relocation plans. The two allies were also eyeing more negotiations over a separate U.S. proposal to remove a third of the 37,000 American troops in South Korea by the end of next year. The issues signal a new test...

For 18,000 soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) recently returned from a year in Iraq -- and for some, more months in Afghanistan -- there's no place like home. The "Screaming Eagles" said they returned to Fort Campbell, Ky., after deployments in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom with a newfound appreciation for the simple pleasures in life. And no single pleasure ranked higher than the opportunity to reconnect with their families. For some, like Staff Sgt. David Giddens with the 101st Corps Support Group's Headquarters and Headquarters Company, being home after an 11-month deployment means...

BAGHDAD — The first part of a painstaking transition from the 1st Armored Division to the 1st Cavalry Division is under way. Members of the 1st Cavalry’s 2nd Brigade Combat team, who arrived last week, already are riding along with 1st AD soldiers to learn the finer points of stability operations in Baghdad. But even before the brigade arrived, it had built on the lessons learned from its predecessors, unit commander Col. Michael Formica said Monday. The 3,000-soldier combat team, called the Blackjack Brigade, brought 90 Abrams M1A2 tanks to Iraq. But it will rely more heavily on its 120...

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - South Korea, along with Germany, will be among the countries most affected by the worldwide redeployment of American armed forces, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the weekend. And in a comment that will resonate in South Korea, he added that that the U.S. favored keeping troops in friendly locations. Speaking at a press conference in Munich, where he was attending a NATO ministers meeting, Rumsfeld said the repositioning of forces was an "enormously complex" exercise that was still being worked on, "but clearly the countries that have the most substantial numbers of forces...

In Germany, GIs back from Iraq receive warm welcome By Rick Emert, Stars and Stripes European edition, Friday, January 30, 2004 GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — The Grafenwöhr, Hohenfels and Vilseck military communities welcomed home from Iraq about 500 soldiers from the 94th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy) in a ceremony Thursday at Grafenwöhr. The 500 engineers returned home Jan. 17. The remaining 137 soldiers from the battalion are in Kuwait working to get the unit’s equipment back to Germany. They are expected to return later this week, according to Lt. Col. Paul Grosskruger, battalion commander. The 94th deployed in January 2002 and...

Marines are getting ready to deploy again into Iraq, Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Michael Hagee told the House Armed Services Committee today. Hagee stressed to the congressmen that the Marine Corps is heavily committed to the war on terror. He said in the past year, Marines have been engaged in operations from Afghanistan to the Arabian Gulf. Marines have also been deployed to the Horn of Africa, Liberia, the Republic of Georgia, Colombia, Guantanamo Bay and the Philippines. He said the Marine participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom last year was the best example of what the Marines bring...

  'Four Corners' Expedites Redeployment Process By Pfc. Thomas Day, USASpecial to American Forces Press Service CAMP VICTORY, Kuwait, Jan. 21, 2004 – One of the first tasks for soldiers crossing into Kuwait on their way home is to turn over all equipment that won't be going with them. At camps throughout Kuwait used by the 101st Airborne Division, that potentially cumbersome process has been organized and expedited with a streamlined system called "Four Corners." A group of UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, wrapped in plastic to protect them from corrosion during the trip back to the United States, waits...

<p>FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. ; Standing in formation with his fellow soldiers who had just arrived from Iraq, Staff Sgt. Ronnie Silverhorn kept his jaw straight and his rifle steady ; but his eyes gave him away.</p> <p>Silverhorn, an Army Ranger, couldn't help the tear that formed, and the broad smile that crept over his face, as he saw his wife, children and parents in the hangar, just before his Alpha Company of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment was dismissed.</p>

  101st Hosts Its Last Tigris River Valley Commission Meeting MOSUL, Iraq – Amid preparations for redeployment, the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) hosted its final meeting of the Tigris River Valley Commission at the Qayyarah West Airfield in northern Iraq Jan. 17. During the meeting, U.S. military and regional Iraqi leaders discussed funding for projects in each town and how money from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) should be distributed. They touched on hiring teachers to fill newly constructed schools around the area, resolving land disputes, and preventing electricity brownouts. The commission is made up of leaders from...

  101st Airborne Redeployment: Largest Wartime Movement Of Troops Ever CAMP DOHA, Kuwait – The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), which landed in Kuwait in February 2003 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is beginning its 10,500-mile, three-month odyssey back home to Fort Campbell, Ky., with a massive transfer of troops and equipment by air and land. Brig. Gen. Jeffery Schloesser, 101st Airborne Division assistant division commander (support), has overseen the division’s redeployment operations in Kuwait, which serves as the primary staging area for all equipment and personnel returning to the U.S. The 101st Airborne Division’s first redeployment convoys...

NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 January 14, 2004Release Number: 04-01-40 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AMID REDEPLOYMENT 101ST CONTINUES RECONSTRUCTION MISSION MOSUL, IRAQ (Jan. 14, 2004) – The operational tempo of the 101st Airborne Division remains high today as its soldiers prepared for redeployment and completed major reconstruction projects in Northern Iraq. Soldiers of the 926th Engineer Battalion put a generator into operation at the Mosul beet sugar factory. This project will ensure the factory has power at all times, boosting employment in the city and also...

The Army's 3rd Personnel Command has issued guidance to redeploying troops about redirecting their mail for a smooth, timely transition to their home-bound addresses. The unit manages postal operations in the Operation Iraqi Freedom theater, and has provided procedures to be followed by soldiers, mail clerks and commanders to ensure mail is properly channeled. The Defense Department is in the process of bringing home 130,000 service members and pieces of equipment numbering in the tens of thousands from Iraq, replacing them with 110,000 soldiers and Marines and fresh equipment. Service members heading home can help to minimize the logistical strain...

On a remote mountaintop in northern Iraq, 10 miles east of the town of Tallafar, soldiers are getting ready to leave their outpost and join fellow soldiers here, and they're doing it the way soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) have been doing it for years: by air. Soldiers from the division's 501st Signal Battalion set up a retransmission site eight months ago on a mountain close to Highway 1 to boost communications between convoys and units' headquarters, said Sgt. Lyle Follmer, radio team chief. The soldiers had to find the area with the best reception, and that...

US troops to shift from S. Korea By Richard Halloran The United States will reassign some troops from South Korea to Afghanistan and Iraq and shift most of the 7,000 people in its headquarters in Seoul out of the capital beginning within a year, military officials say. Thought also is being given to disbanding the United Nations headquarters in South Korea and ending the practice of keeping a four-star general in command of operations in the country. The moves are part of a gradual disengagement of U.S. land forces from Korea and a greater reliance on sea power to maintain...

<p>SEOUL — The United States is committed to defending South Korea from an attack by the North and would use nuclear forces if needed, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the government here yesterday.</p> <p>Mr. Rumsfeld, who finishes his first official visit to Asia today, said the U.S. commitment to South Korea includes "the continued provision of a nuclear umbrella" for South Korea, according to a statement issued after joint security talks.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- As the hunt for Saddam Hussein grows more urgent and the guerrilla war in Iraq shows little sign of abating, the Bush administration is continuing to shift highly specialized intelligence officers from the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to the Iraq crisis, according to intelligence officials who have been involved in the redeployments.</p>

DMZ Twist: U.S. Retreat Unsettles North Korea By JAMES BROOKE EOUL, South Korea, June 10 ?When the Pentagon announced its plans to pull American troops away from the border with North Korea, attention focused mostly on South Korea and its objections to losing the protection of the so-called tripwire. What was largely overlooked were the protests from the party that felt most threatened by the change: North Korea. The tripwire, it seems, works both ways. Ever since the armistice ending the Korean War was signed on July 27, 1953, North Korea has bitterly denounced the presence of American garrisons near...

By Patrick J. Dickson, Stars and StripesEuropean edition, Friday, June 13, 2003 Joe Gromelski / S&S Bernhard Deubig of Kaiserslautern speaks to the media as his fellow German mayors listen Thursday at the National Press Club in Washington. Joe Gromelski / S&S Mayor Richard Schlicht of Vilseck and County Commissioner Rolf Künne of Kaiserslautern listen to the news conference. Joe Gromelski / S&S Mayors Anton Jung of Weilerbach, left, and Klaus Grumer of Landstuhl at the news conference. Joe Gromelski / S&S Left to right, Mayors Helmut Waechter of Grafenwohr, Volkmar Pees of Baumholder and Bernhard Deubig of Kaiserslautern. WASHINGTON...

BAMBERG, Germany — A new training area provided new opportunities to soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 33rd Field Artillery Regiment. The unit, which normally holds exercises at the Grafenwöhr Training Area in Germany, began training April 30 in Czech Republic. The exercise, which ends Wednesday, involved about two weeks of preparatory training before the soldiers got the opportunity for some live-fire exercises, according to Lt. Col. Michael Miklos, 1st Battalion commander. The exercise at the Hradiste complex allowed the unit to expand its training, Miklos said. “With the live fire on [Saturday], we were able to mass the entire...