One of the most famous divisions in the U.S. Army officially took over command of the Joint Task Force guarding the southern border on Friday.
The 101st Airborne, dubbed “Screaming Eagles,” officially took over command of the JTF Southern Border mission from the 10th Mountain Division in a ceremony Friday at the JTF Headquarters in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The task force combines more than 10,000 service members from across the Armed Forces to protect the border, which has seen zero migrant releases in the last four months.
“This is a real world mission against a living, breathing threat,” Maj. Geoffrey Carmichael of the 10th Mountain Division told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “When you look at all of those things that we’re doing on the border, that the Joint Task Force does on the border, they’re building warfighter readiness.”
The 10th Mountain Division stationed three brigades, each typically comprised of roughly 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, across the nine sectors of the border designated by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Carmichael stressed that the value of the border mission stretches beyond merely curtailing illegal immigration, pointing out it also provides units with a proving ground for new technology and tactics.
“The Joint Task Force leaves more proficient at warfighting than when they’ve arrived,” Carmichael told the DCNF. “Our Stryker brigade that’s down here has a better operational readiness rate than it did back home.”
The task force instituted a 250-mile buffer zone along the border in July to further aid CBP’s efforts at the border. The Pentagon under War Secretary Pete Hegseth also deployed 700 troops to aid in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in multiple states.
The 101st Airborne is one of the most storied divisions in the armed forces, most famous for their valiant defense against German forces during the Siege of Bastogne in the Second World War.
“We have such a flexible force that we can deploy, driven by good intelligence, so that we can better effectively disperse our personnel across the southern border,” Carmichael told the DCNF regarding the JTF.
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