Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division train at a site in Romania on Jan. 26, 2023. The unit is being replaced in Europe by the division’s 1st BCT. A 10th Mountain Division headquarters unit will also deploy to the Continent. (Justin Rachal/U.S Army)
Elements of the Army’s 10th Mountain Division are deploying to Europe to replace a 101st Airborne Division team that has been operating out of a strategic hub in Romania for the past nine months, the service said this week.
Besides the 500-soldier 10th Mountain headquarters, nearly 4,000 soldiers from the 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Ky., will replace that division’s second brigade.
“The Mountain Division is no stranger to deployments across the globe. Our formations are trained, ready and prepared,” Maj. Gen. Gregory Anderson, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, said in a statement Tuesday.
The changeover means the Army is continuing with an enhanced presence along NATO’s southeastern flank. Last summer, President Joe Biden ordered a rotational brigade to Romania, the first such mission of its size in the region.
In the past, most Army rotational brigade combat teams were dispatched to Poland for missions aimed at deterring Russian aggression.
“The Bastogne Brigade is ready to assume the critical mission of assuring our NATO allies and deterring Russian aggression on NATO’s eastern flank,” Col. Kevin Sharp, commander of the 1st BCT, 101st Airborne, said in the statement.
In a nod to the 101st Airborne soldiers who fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, Sharp said his brigade was “ready to secure the peace in Europe that was built on the sacrifices of those first soldiers of the 101st Airborne.”
The Army noted that the new deployments are “one-for-one unit replacements” and that they don’t represent a change to force posture levels.
Currently, about 100,000 U.S. troops are carrying out missions in Europe, up from the roughly 80,000 ahead of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine one year ago.
The 101st units were initially ordered to Romania in June. They operated mostly out of Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, which serves as a hub for the Army in the Black Sea region.
During their time in Europe, 101st soldiers have been tasked with monitoring events in Ukraine for potential spillover into allied countries and incorporating lessons from the war into American ground forces’ training.
“The (new) deployments will ensure that the United States continues to be well-positioned to provide a robust deterrent and defensive posture alongside our allies across the European continent,” the Army said in its statement.
