FRIDAY FOTO (May 22, 2015)

Keeping It Real.

U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Charles Crail

It looks easier than it is. Just try it at home.

Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division compete in the Team Assault Course Competition during the division’s “All American Week.”

Seventeen teams from across the division negotiated nine obstacles in a race against the clock to determine the fastest team. All American Week celebrates the past, present and future of the storied unit. Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant York, was a member of the All American Division back in 1918 before it became the Army’s first Airborne division in 1942.

The 82nd made combat jumps in Sicily, Italy, Normandy and Holland during World War II.

To see more photos of this challenge, click here.

FRIDAY FOTO Extra (March 20, 2015)

Concentration.

82nd Airborne Division photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Hull

Paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team (2nd BCT) and the British 16th Air Assault Brigade conduct airborne training at the Advanced Airborne School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Since the folks in this photo are already experienced paratroopers, we wonder what the training leader is saying through the loud hailer and what is it these Brits and Yanks are doing with their hands.

We’d appreciate it if any sky soldiers or paras out there could help us out with an explanation of this intriguing image.

Now back to the larger question: Why is such a large number of the United Kingdom’s maroon berets at Bragg?”

They’re training with U.S. troops and U.S. equipment to achieve seamless integration in future operations. The 2nd BCT is slated to lead a Combined Joint Operational Access Exercise with the British battle group in April. That exercise will test the 82nd’s capability to integrate with a U.K. brigade, allowing the two units to operate quickly and effectively if deployed together in a future coalition crisis response force.

More than 850 British Soldiers began arriving at Fort Bragg on March 9 to prepare for the exercise. 

To see more photos, click here.

FRIDAY FOTO (July 26, 2013)

Just Say ‘Ahh’

(U.. Army photo by Sgt. Justin A. Moeller)

Capt. Abby Raymond, brigade dentist for the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, looks over the shoulder of an Afghan National Army medic as he performs an oral exam on a fellow commando, during a basic dental class at Forward Operating Base Thunder. FOB Thunder is located in Paktya Province in Afghanistan.

U.S. and coalition troops are scheduled to turn over security responsibilities for the entire country to the Afghan National Army by the end of 2014.

To see a photo slide show of this training class, click here.

FRIDAY FOTO (June 28, 2013)

Garuda Shield

(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)

Two weeks ago we showed you U.S. Marines jumping out of a helicopter with French paratroopers into the skies over East Africa. Now we have a photo of Army and Indonesian paratroopers jumping from a C-17 Globemaster into the skies over West Java in Indonesia. If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see theC-17’s right wing and part of the stabilizer amid the opening chutes as it flies on.

The troops taking part in this nearly picture perfect tactical airborne drop are from the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division and Indonesian Army 1st Infantry Division. It was all part of an exercise called Garuda Shield, which ran from June 10 to 21. Here’s a link to the Garuda Shield Facebook page.

Garuda Shield 13, which marked the seventh iteration of the bilateral exercise since 2004, included planning and executing a combined brigade-level command post drill in which Indonesian and American soldiers planned and executed peacekeeping operations. Here’s a link to a Stars and Stripes story on the exercise.

To see more photos of the airborne drop click here.

To see other photos of the exercise in Indonesia, click here and here and  here.

FRIDAY FOTO (May 24, 2013)

Indian-U.S. Training

(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)

Indian Army Private Anil Pawe and Spc. Henry Vaillancourt, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, partner up to fire an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  Vaillancourt is familiarizing Pawe — an infantryman assigned to the Indian Army’s 99th Mountain Brigade — with the American machine gun prior to field training during the annual U.S. – India Yudh Abhyas training exercise, which ended May 17.

The joint exercise dates to 2004. Yudh Abhyas means “training for war,” in Hindi. About 200 Indian troops from units including the 50th Independent Para Brigade and the 5th Gurkha Rifles participated.

For more photos of this training exercise, click here.

FRIDAY FOTO (January 25, 2013)

A Shot in the Dark

(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)

An advanced rifle marksmanship instructor ( left) teaches a paratrooper how to use a thermal-imaging scope at night during a four-day course at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

To see more images of this training program, click here.

FRIDAY FOTO (January 11, 2012)

Every Day is a Winding Road

(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)

U.S. Army paratroopers and Afghan soldiers move along a riverbed during a foot patrol in Afghanistan’s southern Ghazni province. This photo was taken on May 8, 2012. It is included in a Defense Department retrospective, the Year in Photos 2012.

We were looking for something different for this week’s FriFo and we were taken by the arid imagery and curving composition of this photo. Please click on the photo to get the full effect.

The U.S. paratroopers are with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. They’re based at Forward Operating Base Arian near the village of Askarkot on Highway 1. Here’s a link to their Facebook page.

FRIDAY FOTO (August 10, 2012)

Dangerous Digging

(U.S. Army photo by Capt. Thomas Cieslak)

The people who design and build robots and other unmanned systems like to say their technology is meant to relieve humans of tasks that are “dirty, dull or dangerous.” This week’s FRIFO illustrates one of those tasks.

Here we see U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Alan Sutton searching for a command wire to a homemade bomb — known as an improvised explosive device (IED) — during a sweep one of Afghanistan’s primary roads, Highway 1 in Ghazni province. Obviously, this work is far from dull but it looks dirty and plenty dangerous. Sutton, a platoon leader, is assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s Company A, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team. (Yes, that’s quite a mouthful.)

The BCT deployed to Ghazni in March to help bring security to the areas surrounding Highway 1. During this patrol on Aug. 1, the company came under fire from insurgents. (See photo below)

(U.S. Army photo by Capt. Thomas Cieslak)

For more photos of this operation, click here.

FRIDAY FOTO (June 29, 2012)

Stay Low!

(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod, Task Force 1/82 Public Affairs Office)

An Afghan soldier runs past a U.S. Army paratrooper during a firefight with insurgent forces near Joint Security Station Hasan, which is close to the village of Spedar in southern Afghanistan’s Ghazni province.

The American soldier, from the 82nd Airborne Division, is armed with an M249 squad automatic weapon. The Afghan soldier is carrying some sort of automatic battle rifle, probably a Kalishnikov.

It was really hard to pick a photo from the Defense Department slideshow that exhibited the above photo. The photo below shows just how bucolic the landscape in this area of Afghanistan is — until the shooting starts. The photo shows U.S. paratroopers and Afghan soldiers heading toward Spedar.

U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod

To see more photos of what happened next, click here to see a Defense Dept. slideshow. There are many fine photos in this essay. We hope  you will give them a look.

FRIDAY FOTO June 8, 2012

Normandy Nurses

Ellan Levitsky Orkin (left) and Dorothy Levitsky-Sinner unveil the plaque honoring the two sisters and wartime nurses in Bolleville, France. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Sharilyn Wells)

The motto of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps is Embrace the Past, Engage the Present, Envision the Future.

Here’s a photo that seems to encompass all of that sentiment. Ellan Levitsky Orkin and her sister Dorothy Levitsky-Sinner, served as Army nurses in Normandy during World War II. At a ceremony two days before the 68th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the sisters were honored with a plaque and made honorary citizens of Bolleville, France — where they worked at a hospital during the war.

Like so many veterans of World War II, the Levitsky sisters were humble about their service.

“We thank you for all of this, but really, we were just doing what we were told to do – our jobs,” said Orkin, 92, a former Army 1st lieutenant. Levitsky-Sinner, a former Army 2nd lieutenant, is 95.

According to reminiscences shared with a World War II medical history site, the sisters — who were from Salem, New Jersey — served at the 164th General Hospital at Boleville from August 1944 to April 1945. They insisted on serving together. To hear a brief — and funny — interview with Ellan Levitsky Orkin at the ceremony, click here.

Please take a look at this Defense Department slideshow of the ceremony. You’ll also see the regard the people of Normandy, paratroopers of the U.S. and U.K. armies and the U.S. Air Force hold these diminutive, feisty ladies in.

A day earlier, some of those paratroopers took part in a re-enactment of the night-time airdrop near Sainte-Mere-Eglise on the night of June-6, 1944. Here’s a link to a slideshow on that.

Task Force 68, which is made up of paratroopers from U.S., France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany — yes, Germany — re-enacted the D-Day airborne operation on the La Fiere fields near Sainte-Mere-Eglise, France on June 3. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Sharilyn Wells)