10th Mountain Division returns to Colorado
For decades the 10th Mountain Division has been stationed at Fort Drum, New York – the flatest terrain in New York State. I seem to remember that one unit of the division was at Fort Polk, Louisiana, again mountainless. Our buddy, Nina Bookout at Victory Girls reports that the Division now has a National Guard unit at Camp Hale, Colorado, where the division began it’s storied history before World War II;
These American soldier skiers were instrumental in turning the tide of war to Allied Victory at Riva Ridge, Mount Belvedere, Mount Della Torracia and Lake Garda. One of their own, PFC John Magrath, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. After the war, many went on to serve as ski instructors, establish ski areas by the name of Vail, Aspen, Arapahoe Basin, or as one soldier by the name of Bob Dole did, enter the world of politics.
In the 1950’s Camp Hale served as a training ground for the Mountain Cold Weather Training Command. It became so due to the fact that those serving in Korea were ill-equipped to handle the weather and terrain. I’m proud to say that my father, Tyler Dodge, was one of those instructors. Others with the same command went on to establish new ski areas – Chuck Lewis with Copper Mountain, work as geologists, or become engineers who now enjoy a second career as an artist, and others became business owners or entered into politics.
From the Vail Daily;
Now official members of the third maneuver battalion of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain), organized under the 10th Mountain Division, many of the 300 to 400 troops of the 550-member battalion who were present on Sunday will learn vertical and high angle movement on rock faces like those at Camp Hale. Other troops will learn skills like inserting themselves into high altitude alpine terrain, long range weapon operation in mountainous terrain and high-altitude marksmanship. Some will even learn to ski.
“As a National Guard Unit, we don’t have the time to train every single day,” said Lt. Col. John W. Hancher with the 157th Infantry. “So we wanted to spread out the knowledge and experience throughout the entire battalion.”
Prior to the 157th Infantry’s re-patching on Sunday, the 10th Mountain Division patch was for active duty personnel only. The troops who were re-designated Sunday are part of a pilot program where the part-time servicemen and servicewomen with the Colorado National Guard’s first battalion of the 157th Infantry are now organized under the 10th Mountain Division. Captain Rich Piltinsrud was among the troops to receive the new designation; he was one of only a few selected to have their patches adhered to their shoulders by an original member of the 10th Mountain Division who trained at Camp Hale in the ‘40s.
Nina was at the re-patching ceremony and took some good pictures, you should click over and look at them.
Category: Army News
Army seems to be doing more and more of this. A NG unit in Texas and one in Rhode Island (I think) are now flagged under the 173rd Airborne out of Vicenza, Italy
Had to have been way cool to have been at the ceremony in Colorado – especially with one of the original unit members there.
My son is in the NG unit in Texas – and oddly they are flagged under 173rd and still – if I understand – work under the T-patch.
Some things just confuse me.
It’s a pilot program. We’ve done variations of this over the years- roind out brigades, war-trace, etc.
https://www.army.mil/article/168849
We’ve got large Army bases (with maneuver areas, I mean) in Colorado, Alaska and a couple of other mountainous states, but we keep the division that is supposed to specialize in mountain warfare in New York (and the Mountain warfare center in Vermont)-doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“doesn’t make a lot of sense.” The motto of the current crew running the Pentagon.
“Make sense” and “Army” don’t seem to fit in the same sentence.
When Dad’s 103rd ID (“Cactus Division”) was reconstituted to be based in Iowa – with the saguaro cactus still on the patch, of course – I really had to shake my head. It started out with a bunch of West Texas and New Mexico boys, so the cactus made sense. But Iowa?
Something like a patch or symbol (a cactus, for instance) can be a legacy item. “This is where are our roots are.” But a unit that is supposed to have special skills (like the Mountain Division) really should be placed where their skills can be honed and where the very environment contributes to their mental readiness.
True, and I understand that. But the “Cactus Patch” as Dad referred to it was all dry-land boys. Guys who knew not to pitch a tent in an arroyo (as some did in France – and lost their equipment one rainy night).
I know it’s historical, but some of the original signification of their background is missing in Iowa…
Or, I’m becoming an old curmudgeon.
The 103rd was originally constituted as a reserve division- When we reorganized the Army National Guard and Reserve after WWII the guard divisions, being u see state control, were aligned with the states. The Army put Reserve units where they needed them- generally where they were originLly, but not always. The 103d ended up in Iowa.
It hasnt been an infantry division in years- it was a Corps Support Group and now it’s a Sustainment command. This is also a result of a reorg, this time when the Guard insisted that all combat units should be in the Guard. Many famous infantry divisions became ARCOMs or training divisions and other type units. The only actual combat arms unit left in the Reserves is the 442nd Infantry in the Pacific
After the war it was deactivated as
Re
To the congressmen who wrangled that appropriation and whose constituents reap the benefit of all that Federal cash it makes perfect sense. 😉
You’ve got me there. Still transfer 4th ID to New York and let the 10th play in Colorado (or whichever).
Also I would point out that there really aren’t a lot of actual military training areas in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Fort Carson is not in the mountains, it’s at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain but is entirely on the high, flat plains, as are all of Fort Carson’s training areas. The large, off-post maneuver area in Colorado, Pinon Canyon, is also on the high plains East of Walsenburg.
Any “mountain” training done in CO would have to take place on multi-use Federal lands, most of it owned by the US Forest Service. Since it’s multi-use, there can be no permanent military infrastructure (live fire ranges and such) there.
Unless the Army decides to buy back Camp Hale (it’s a huge open area just off of US Highway 24, North of Tennessee Pass) and build some permanent facilities there, any kind of training in the mountains there is going to be small scale and ad-hoc.
Camp Hale itself is completely razed flat, the only structures remaining are some of the foundations of old buildings (and even those are in poor repair.) The buildings themselves have been gone for decades.
Meh-I mean you could still acclimate the troops to altitude and teach some mountaineering skills with what is there I would think-got to be better than New York.
Anyway, I went to a school at Ft. Harrison Montana which is where the “Devil’s Brigade” trained during WWII. The cadre there told us that the SF still uses it to prepare for Afghanistan. So I guess what I am trying to say is that even if Ft. Carson isn’t ideal for Mountain training, we do have some facilities that could be used and the west seems like better territory for that training than most places in the east.
And, most of the old Camp Hale cantonment area is off limits due to risk of asbestos exposure.
Buying back Camp Hale won’t happen. The legality of it is too difficult… buying land near there will likely happen in the future. There are land use agreements all over the place between the forest service and military units in Colorado. It would make sense to purchase permanent training lands somewhere.
You guys do realize that the highest peak in the Adirondak Mountains – Mt Marcey, 5,300+ ft elevation – is about 100 mi east of Fort Drum, right?
Jonn’s right: Fort Drum is set in one of the few relatively flat parts of NY state. Most of the state is rather hilly to outright mountainous – including much of the supposedly “flat” area in and around the Hudson Valley.
Drum isn’t particularly badly located with respect to being near/far from mountains. What hurts training at Drum is the fact that DoD doesn’t have a mountain training area in the vicinity. But Drum’s not unique in that respect. Virtually every other Army installation in CONUS has the same issue: no real access to an existing mountain training area big enough for large-scale troop maneuvers. The only ones of which I’m aware that do are White Sands and (maybe) Bliss. And I’m not really sure either of those are suitable for infantry mountain training, given their extensive past use as missile/ADA proving grounds. UXO considerations probably are an issue.
At least Drum gets the troops somewhat acclimated to cold weather operations – not a negligible consideration for mountain operations.
Bliss is all desert, no mountains worthy of the name. I think there’s one mountain range at White Sands, maybe two, but as you pointed out, a lot of that is in the impact area and probably not safe for maneuver.
I’ve never been to NTC/Fort Irwin, isn’t it pretty mountainous? Certainly the Nevada Nuclear Testing Facility (NNTF) has a lot of mountains but I don’t know that the USAF would be crazy about having a bunch of grunts on maneuvers out there.
Fort Huachuca in SE AZ is up against a decent sized mountain range but it’s a fairly small installation.
The environmentalists (specifically “The Southwest Center for Biological Diversity”, a group that seems to employ more lawyers than biologists) would soil themselves and swamp the 9th circus court with frivolous lawsuits if there was even a thought given to expanding the population of Huachuca.
When I think of “mountains”, I think of such places as the “Big Muddy”, crossing the Rockies, or “Tioga Pass”, over the Sierra Nevada, near Yosemite.
Ft. Irwin is a lot of flat, average altitude a mere 2,300 feet (Big Muddy was over 10,000 ft, and Tioga is around 9,000 ft.) And, where I trained, very hot. Not like the Alpine meadows found in the Sierra Nevada, or Rocky Mountains.
Used to train quite a bit at Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) formerly known as the Nevada Test Site (NTS). Certain training areas required wearing dosimeters.
My understanding is that the modern 10th ID was one of the Light Divisions of the 1980s and that it’s “Mountain” tab was historical, not descriptive.
SGT Ted is correct…and it’s the same reason we have a 101st Airborne Division and a 1st Cavalry Division…unit’s have been permitted to keep historical designations as approved by the Army via the CMH and Institute of Heraldry.
“Permitted” isn’t the most accurate wording. The 101st and 1st Cav just happen to have the 2 of the 3 strongest lineage (based on active years of service and battle honors) claims for remaining on active duty.
Maybe, but it looks like they sent 10th ID to Afghanistan to play in the mountains a lot more than they were sent to Iraq*.
*Early in the war it looked like the light-fighters were going to Afghanistan more often generally speaking. Re-orgs later in the war made some of this whole discussion irrelevant.
Makes perfect sense, though, doesn’t it? Heavy/mech units with armor went to Iraq where the ground is relatively flat and where big IEDs are common, while light units went to A-Stan to hump their rucks the mountains.
Have any armored or mech units been to Afghanistan? If so I’m assuming they left their tanks back at the home station.
Of course, but if we are preparing them to deploy to such a place I would hope that we are training them in a similar environment somewhere*.
*Camp Shelby wasn’t ideal for deployment to Iraq, except WRT heat, but it made a certain sense in that there were billets for the large numbers of reserve troops that needed pre-deployment training.
I went to Drum to train up for Iraq – not too much similarity between Mosul and mid-January Watertown…
Had a similar experience in 2005. Graf in December to prep for Iraq.
Just the opposite for us in 1997: We trained at Fort Benning GA and Fort Polk, LA for a Winter deployment to the Balkans. 😀
Forgot to say our training in GA and LA was in August and September. 😀
The original concept was to have 4 light infantry divisions (3 active and 1 NG) that would fill the hole between the airborne divisions and the mechanized/ armored divisions.
The Active Duty units were the 7th which was based at Ft Ord, the 10th at Drum, and the 25th in Hawaii. The NG unit was the 29th Infantry, based in Virginia and surrounding states.
And you are also correct in the Mountain tab being part of the 10th’s legacy. The unit was originally formed after Minnie Dole went to FDR to petition for the creation of a unit trained to fight in the Mountains after seeing how the Finnish were able to combat the Russians.
They were recruited from men who were already familiar with mountain climbing and skiing.
What’s interesting to me is that there is now an infantry unit in the CO National Guard – something they haven’t had since, IIRC, WW1 or earlier. CO, WY and UT were traditionally big artillery states, I think both CO and WY had a NG Artillery brigade and several cannon battalions. From my recollection of history, Colorado has been reluctant to have infantry units ever since the notorious Ludlow Massacre and the “Colorado Coalfield war” of 1914.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
In any case, the return of the 10th Mountain to Colorado is long overdue. With all the mountain fighting our troops are doing in Afghanistan it seems an appropriate developmet.
Not gonna happen – care to guess how many billions have been spent on Drum?
I dunno, the Army spent a buttload of money on Fort Ord just before it closed, too.
In fact, that was one of the most pernicious tactics of congress during the BRAC process of the 1990’s: If a congressman or senator had a base in their district or state that was on the hit list, they’d move heaven and earth to try and get as much $$ as possible spent on that site, so that when the BRAC axe was about to fall they could say “you can’t close this facility, we just spent eleventy jillion dollars renovating it!!!!”
Oldest tactic in the book, work the “sunk costs” fallacy. 😉
BTW wasn’t Fort Drum a big nothing until it was reactivated for the sole purpose of putting the 10th Mountain there in the mid 1980’s?
Yeah, I was signed for seven World War II wooden barracks while I was there.
Went there as a youngster in the 70’s when it was Camp Drum – hadn’t changed since WW2. They rebuilt the entire post since then. Difference between Drum and Ord is Chuck Schumer is the senior senator from NY and guess who is in line to take over the leadership role next?
Also went to Ord when I was a student at DLI in the late 80’s – remember going past the protesters at the main gate 🙂 .
Jonn last time I was up there a few years ago they still had several of those barracks standing – converted into offices. They tore most of them down when they built a new Engineer center a while ago. I remember in 2005 coming back from Iraq the roof on some of them had collapsed from the snow.
Snow-Ski Patrol, Florida
Deep Sea Diving School, Montana
Top Gun School, Manhattan
Heterosexual Academy, San Francisco
Makes perfect sense to me? I was with the 140th Signal Battalion in the Colo Army Nat’l Guard, spent my whole life in the beautiful mountains of Colorado. Camp Hale was nothing but a ghost town the last time I was there in the late 70’s. Now I spend my time in hot ass Florida!
This is all part of the Army’s “reorganization” plan to reduce the force by bolstering active divisions with reserve component units. While they deactivate BCTs, they are replacing them with NG units to make it seem like they’re still real Divisions.
This was already in practice somewhat previously where NG units were linked up with BCTs and divisions.
Now, even more so those NG units will have two bosses who both want completely different things done. the NG Bureaus will want different metrics checked and worked on vice the Division that will want certain metrics and certain training done.
In another few years, right before we have another “big” war that requires multiple divisions, just prior to it every Division will, yet again, be at 100+% manning. As soon as the war starts, they’ll all post their real numbers being in the 70s and 80s.
I seem to recall that under the old “Division 80” system, active duty divisions in CONUS all had two active brigades and one National Guard “roundout” brigade. It was after the miserable performance of at least one “roundout” brigade during the runup to Desert Storm that the Army did away with the “roundout brigade” system.
But in any case, when was the last time the US Army fought in Divisions anyway? Wasn’t the whole idea of the BCT concept that you would have “divisions” that were really just an assembly of interchangeable BCTs that could be added or subtracted as needed.
The “Division” is really just the headquarters element that coordinates all the moving parts of the multiple brigades under “division” command.
Any more it seems like the only purpose of a division is to give a lineage (and a shoulder sleeve insignia/patch) to a collection of more-or-less independent and interchangeable BCTs.
What’s funny to me as a historian is that the notion of a self-contained BCT looks an awful lot like the old concept of a regiment that existed prior to WWII. 😉
Yes….I recall this distinctly.
While I was a Junior in High School I enlisted under the split option program; I was assigned to the 205th Inf Brigade ( Sep) Light, as a round out for the 6th light Inf Div. Alaska in the Early 80’s
We wore the 205th patch on our left shoulder, and the 6th ID patch on the breast pocket of our BDU’s.
There is quite a rich history related to the 10th and the North Country.
Many of the local ski areas can point to at least a couple alumni and some still have exhibits and events. There are even a couple highways dedicated to the unit.
http://www.cranmore.com/The-Mountain/Mountain-Events/Hannes-Schneider-Meister-Cup-Race
I did not realize the back story on the Dartmouth Outing Club tie back with former CSM John Rand.
http://newenglandskimuseum.org/ski-museum-unveils-10th-mountain-division-exhibition/
And, a nice summary of the Meister event and active duty SM’s.
http://blog.nj.com/skiing/2015/03/10th_mountain_division_ceremon.html
Is this where the NG train their biathlon competition teams?
Vermont.
We just re-patched our mountain guys to the 10th also. Mountain warfare school is in Jericho Vermont. You can earn your rams head but cant were it if your active duty.
Thanks. I wondered about that.
Speaking of Mountain, when I was in Kuwait in 2004 I saw some soldiers there wearing a 1st Army patch with a “Mountain” tab above it. I asked them where they were from and they said a National Guard unit from either New Hampshire, Vermont or Maine, I can’t remember which. Some “Mountain” battalion that was directly subordinate to 1st Army. Very odd.
Seems like everyone has a patch or tab these days….
The 10th Mountain Division is no more a Mountain Division than the 1st CAV and 3rd CR are cavalry units. It hasn’t been since WWII. When it was reactivated in the ’80s it was as a Light Infantry Division and that’s what it has been since. The Mountain tab was simply a nod to heritage. In reality, since the Army went to modular Brigade Combat Team during this war none of the divisions are really what they used to be- they are just the HQ over a collection of modular brigades. The 82nd, 10th, and 101st all remained strictly infantry divisions, with 4 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (those in the 82nd were Airborne, but those brigades were organized exactly the same as IBCTs in the other divisions). Other divisions, like 1st ID, had a mix of Infantry, Armored, and even Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. The NG unit you refer to is the only actual Mountain unit in the Army by organization and training. Until recently they were a separate battalion with companies spread out over a few New England States, so they wore the First US Army Patch (the big A) with a Mountain Tab because there was no brigade or division patch for them to wear. Those guys are actual, no kidding, mountain troops that went to the mountain school (they wear this cool mountain badge) and actually have climbing gear and skis, etc. Since then they were reorganized into an IBCT, with the battalions still trained, organized, and equipped for mountain ops, so they still rate the Mountain Tab. This is way in the weeds, but you can tell by the way the unit is listed. The actual type unit is listed in parenthesis behind the battalion designation. The distinction is that the battalions are designated as Mountain (1st Battalion, 102nd Infantry Regiment (Mountain) (CT NG) and 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Regiment (Mountain). This is true for Airborne and Air Assault units as well, because they are trained and equipped specifically to conduct that type mission. As an example, outfits in the 82nd or 101st are actually 1st… Read more »
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