100 more to deploy to Iraq from JBLM
According to the Stars & Stripes a hundred more soldiers are preparing to deploy to the war against ISIS. This bunch comes from Joint Base Lewis McChord and they’re signal folks from the 35th Signal Brigade;
They’ll join more than 2,100 other American servicemembers already serving in Iraq and will support the U.S. Central Command mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
About 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division’s 3rd Combat Team will deploy from Fort Bragg, N.C., around the same time and also expect a nine-month deployment.
But, it’s a good thing that the war in Iraq has ended.
Category: Terror War
And you guys say us Signal folks are REMFs. When you close on the FOB, why looky there: there’s a phone on table. s/
Just having fun, since so rare that Signal folks get mentioned here…never been a Poser claiming to be a wire rat or RTO.
I always thought that Signal was one of the most under appreciated branches because if they’re doing they’re job, nobody notices, they just pick up the phones or key the radio and talk. But holy God, if they aren’t doing it right, the commander gets PISSED. Since I spent much of my career working in TOCs I lost track of the number of times I heard a Col or even a General yelling “WHERE’S THAT SIGO? [Signal Officer] SIGO, GET UP HERE! GET THIS GODDAM SYSTEM FIXED SO I CAN TALK!”
But of course, if everything worked just fine, I’m pretty sure I never heard the same officer say “Great job, SIGO.”
I was fortunate in Nam as the BDE SigO for the 3/82 (ABN)(SEP) in having BG Bolling as the boss. He made me ride with him when he was visiting the BNs so that he could show me where he was thinking of moving units. I got the major vote based on probability of having good commo from the locations. The G3 stayed pissed at me.
As we used to say when I was in various signal units (yes, I was a wire rat and an RTO, a 31E Field Radio Repairer – before the Big Army changed it to 25C),
“You can talk about us, but you can’t talk without us.”
And for when I was in a tank support (614th Maint of the 2nd ACR, Merrill Barracks, Germany), it was:
“Without us, all you’d have is a 60 ton rolling paperweight.”
BTW when I was in, 35th Signal Brigade was at Bragg. Did they move their flag to Lewis or is it a battalion at Lewis and the Brigade HQ is still at Bragg?
Though I guess that makes sense. With the drawdown and base closures it seems like Lewis (JBLM – Joint Base Lewis McChord) is becoming the West Coast’s equivalent of Bragg anyway.
The 35th Signal Brigade is at Fort Gordon, GA. The 51st ESB is at JBLM (used to be 29th Sig Bn). The Brigade also has BNs at other installations. The talk is the 35th TTSB may move back to Bragg.
Spent my entire career in signal (26Q, 31Q, 31M, 31R, 31W, 25W) and it always amazed me when some unit was bragging about “first boots on ground” got awful quiet when reminded that when they got there “first”, there was a tired cable dog asking where they wanted their phone. Good times!
I too was a 26Q, 31Q, 31R (with “Y” ident), 31S and then retired as a 25S.
I’m pretty sure our paths have crossed!
Its even better when your the last American squad to close an eastern Afghanstain FOB with Italians as your security, because the infantry guys forgot about a switch in a closet
But they were the last unit in that FOB of course
Mission creep? What mission creep? Who said anything about mission creep? There’s no mission creep.
In both Korea and Germany I remember the Signal battalion troops were always the first ones out in the field and the last ones to come back.