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WATERTOWN
AILY TIMES
30 Years
atDFort
Drum

M6 Sunday, September 7, 2014

WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES

Global duty for 10th Mountain Division

NORM JOHNSTON n WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES

WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES FILES

A Fort Drum soldier patrols the streets in Homestead, Fla., where

Hurricane Andrew devastated the area in August 1992.

FORT POLK, LA.:

Multiple training
stints at the Joint
Readiness Training
Center.
FORT IRWIN, CALIF.:
Multiple training stints
at the National Training
Center.

NEW YORK CITY: About 250

personnel and 50 2,500-gallon
fuel tankers from units
throughout the division were
dispatched in November 2012
to aid in the recovery from
Superstorm Sandy.
SOUTH FLORIDA:
About 6,000 division
soldiers deployed in
August 1992 to aid
in the recovery from
Hurricane Andrew.
Division soldiers were
there for about two
months.

A girl watches a U.S. patrol drive by in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, while

marking the 1994 return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

CANADA: Multiple
training missions
occurred over the
years between
American and
Canadian forces,
such as Exercise
Ghost Dragoon in the
Ottawa River Valley
in August, or the
Operation Guerrier
Nordique on Baffin
Island in March.

WALES: Soldiers from

4th Battalion, 31st
Infantry Regiment, 2nd
Brigade Combat Team,
trained with British
Army members at Brecon
Beacons in July 2014.
BOSNIA: Multiple
units deployed to
the country in March
1997 for construction
and defense
missions, with
follow-up missions
running from 1998
to 2000.

WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES FILES

10th Mountain Division and Russian soldiers meet in Bosnia during

a NATO joint peacekeeping mission in May 1997.

KOSOVO: Division members

were in the country for some
of 2001 and 2002 as a part
of Operation Joint Guardian,
where they performed
multiple peacekeeping roles.

IRAQ: Division units first deployed

to the country in March 2003, where
they supported the 10th Special Forces
Group. They also secured airfields and
oil transfer sites, and trained Kurdish
militants. Division forces operated
there during the Gulf War.

KYRGYZSTAN: Division
soldiers trained on peacekeeping
methods here and in Uzbekistan
in 1998 with military forces from
Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Kazakhstan and Turkey.

UZBEKISTAN:
Division soldiers,
primarily from 1st
Battalion, 87th
Infantry Regiment,
deployed to KarshiKhanabad, a former
Soviet air base in
Uzbekistan, where
they were joined by
soldiers from the
4th Battalion, 31st
Infantry Regiment, to
secure the airfield and
provide humanitarian
support in October
2001.

KUWAIT: Among first

deployments to the
country following the
attacks of 9/11 were
soldiers of 4th Battalion,
31st Infantry Regiment,
who secured coalition
equipment, facilities and
personnel here and in
Qatar in October 2001.
AFGHANISTAN:
Division units have
deployed to the country
regularly since Sept.
11, 2001. Currently,
the 10th Mountain
Divisions headquarters
is leading operations in
the countrys Regional
Command-East.
PAKISTAN: Soldiers
from the 1st Battalion,
87th Infantry Regiment,
trained with Pakistani
and other U.S. forces in
summer 1997 as a part
of Inspired Gambit 97.

HONDURAS: Among the

divisions operations in the
country was its training
under Joint Task Force Bravo
in summer 1993. About 120
and 150 members of the 1st
Brigades 2nd Battalion,
22nd Infantry, took part in
the operation.
PANAMA: Multiple division units
have sent soldiers to the country for
operations and training exercises,
including multiple operations at the
former Jungle Operations Training
Center at Fort Sherman, Panama.

HAITI: About 8,600

division soldiers went
to the country in fall
1994, securing areas
of Port-au-Prince
and elsewhere to set
up a return of exiled
Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand
Aristide as a part of
Operation Uphold
Democracy.

CUBA: Division
soldiers were
staged at
Guantanamo Bay
in September
1994 prior to
Operation Uphold
Democracy in
Haiti.

FORMER YUGOSLAVIAN
REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA:
Division members aiding in
efforts in Kosovo joined with
elements of Task Force Falcon
operating in the country.
Among those were the 3rd
Battalion, 6th Field Artillery
Regiment, which guarded
the airport at Skopje used by
peacekeepers.

NORM JOHNSTON n WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES

Military police conduct searches at the Bagram Airfield post

entrance gate in Afghanistan in 2002 as local civilian workers enter.

DJIBOUTI: Members of
the 4th Battalion, 31st
Infantry Regiment, 2nd
Brigade Combat Team,
deployed to the country
in April 2003 to support
the global war on terror.
EGYPT: Multiple division units
were dispatched to the Sinai
Peninsula during a peacekeeping
effort during the Gulf War.

SOMALIA:
Division forces
deployed to
the country
from 1992 to
1994 to aid
in Operation
Restore Hope
and Operation
Continue
Hope.

SAUDI ARABIA:
Division elements
operated in the country
during the Gulf War,
and in 2000, members
of the 4th Battalion,
31st Infantry Regiment,
2nd Brigade Combat
Team, served there.

COMPILED BY GORDON BLOCK, WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES

GRAPHIC BY LAUREN HARRIENGER

WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES FILES

1st Lt. Adam M. Malson, 4th Battalion, 31st Regiment, walks

through a market near Baghdad in 2005.

QATAR: Division
soldiers responding
to the attacks of 9/11
to secure coalition
equipment, facilities
and personnel were
sent here and to Kuwait
in October 2001.

WATERTOWN DAILY TIMES FILES

A soldier from the 10th Mountain Division waits for an open phone
to call home on Christmas Eve, 2004, at Camp Liberty in Baghdad.

Drones offer ground troops support, safety from above

By JAEGUN LEE
TIMES STAFF WRITER

FORT DRUM When U.S.

troops are on the ground in
unfamiliar territory, its vital to
have eyes from the skies tracking enemy movement.
Our focus is to support our
ground troops and keep them
safe overseas. Thats what were
here for; thats what we train for,
said Maj. Sandra D. Stoquert,
spokeswoman for the 174th Attack Wing, Syracuse, which flies
MQ-9 Reaper aircraft at Fort
Drums Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield.

Joining the Reapers at the

airfield, an MQ-1C Grey Eagle
a smaller, 3,600-pound unmanned aircraft that can carry
as many as four Hellfire missiles recently reported for
duty at a unit activation ceremony for the Valkyries.
The aircraft is one of nine
Grey Eagles that will join the
Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment,
aka Valkyries.
Commonly referred to as
drones, remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) are operated by
a team of two a pilot and a

censor operator.
It (unmanned aircraft) fits
in everywhere. It really provides the needed situational
awareness for proper decisionmaking on the battlefield,
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Ryan
J. Owen, the companys executive officer, said at this past Julys activation ceremony.
Takeoffs and landings are
handled by a ground-control
station, but once the drone
reaches flying altitude, control
can be handed over to pilots and
censor operators in the United
States through satellite links.

When training, the 174th

Attack Wings 10,500-pound
Reapers are flown out of Fort
Drums airfield by airmen at
the base, who transfer control
to remote cockpits in Syracuse.
Its just like a typical cockpit. They (pilots) are in control
of the speed, everything. Itll
have a throttle, everything that
a typical pilot would have in an
aircraft, Maj. Stoquert said.
And like any other aircraft,
accidents can occur while operating drones.
Most recently, a $10 million
Reaper crashed Nov. 12 into

Lake Ontario about 12 miles

off the coast of the lakes eastern shore due to navigational software failures.
The U.S. Air Force has since
remedied the software problem.
Some people also are concerned that military RPAs could
be used to spy on U.S. citizens,
but Maj. Stoquert said federal
law prohibits such use of drones.
We cannot break U.S. laws
and conduct surveillance on
U.S. citizens. We know people
worry about that, but there are
laws in place to prevent that
from happening, she said.

Although the Army will be

drawing down its active-duty
forces from about 520,000 soldiers to fewer than 450,000 in
2020, it plans to launch a Gray
Eagle company for each of its
10 active-duty divisions across
the country, and for a few special operations units.
Pending approval by Congress is a proposed $27 million
project to build a new hangar for the Gray Eagles at Fort
Drum. Construction for the
project could begin as soon as
next spring, and would take
two years to complete.