10th Mountain Division leadership, headquarters staff return to Fort Drum

By Mike Strasser, Staff WriterSeptember 22, 2016

10th Mtn Homecoming 1
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Maj. Gen. Jeffrey L. Bannister, 10th Mountain Division (LI) and Fort Drum commander, Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Albertson, division senior enlisted adviser, and members of Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion are welcomed home from deployment on Th... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
10th Mtn Homecoming 2
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FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- The uncasing of the 10th Mountain Division (LI) flag on Thursday marked the return of the division's Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion and the completion of a nine-month tour in Afghanistan for nearly 300 Soldiers in support of Operation Resolute Support.

Family Members and friends erupted in cheers as the Soldiers marched into Magrath Gym, and then waited patiently for them to be dismissed from formation. Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Bannister, 10th Mountain Division (LI) commander, and Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Albertson, division senior enlisted adviser, kept the ceremony short so that everyone could reunite quickly with their loved ones.

Both expressed thanks to the leadership at Fort Drum for continuing the missions at home and gratitude to the community as a whole for its support of deployed troops.

Deployed Soldiers had received more than 1,800 care packages, and Albertson credited the family readiness group for extending such support.

"We certainly appreciate all the support back here from all the units, Families and especially the community," Albertson said.

Albertson said that the focus now is on division- and brigade-level training missions while affording Soldiers the time they need to reconnect with Families and the community.

"We're looking forward to getting Soldiers reintegrated and back into training," he said.

Bannister said that the 10th Mountain Division Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion had a different, behind-the-scenes, logistical mission than previous deployments.

"We did not own the battlespace … it was not a combat operation for us," he said. "We pushed out all of our troops and all of our resources to support the Resolute Support Headquarters."

As the U.S. Forces - Afghanistan Support Headquarters, they were responsible for providing logistical and administrative support for NATO forces, to include hundreds of DOD Civilians and contractors, offering assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces.

"The actions of the 10th Mountain team has enabled the train, advise and assist mission, as well as helped increase the Afghan government's ability to provide security and government services to its people," Bannister said.

They executed senior civilian and military force level requirements with detailed planning and analysis, managed a $2.5 billion budget and $1.3 billion worth of contracts, reduced the amount of materiel in theater by thousands of individual pieces of equipment and hosted more than 150 distinguished coalition and U.S. guest visits. Bannister said that optimizing a sustainable footprint was their most significant accomplishment on this deployment.

"The real credit goes to the men and women of USFOR-A and their joint and civilian teammates at Resolute Support and around the country," Bannister said. "Working together with our coalition and Afghan partners, we have helped set the conditions to posture the force to ensure our teammates -- who are doing the heavy lifting of training, advising and assisting -- have the right equipment and forces on time every time."

According to Gen. John W. Nicholson, U.S. Forces - Afghan-istan commander, the 10th Mountain Division (LI) and the National Support Element team had the task of taking the guidance from U.S senior civilian and military leadership in terms of U.S. troop levels and matching troops to task requirements across the theater to ensure continued capacity and capability in support of the train, advise and assist mission.

"Without the efforts of the entire USFOR-A team, our coalition partners and the Afghan security forces could not have continued to weaken insurgents and improve security and other vital government services to the people this last year," Nicholson said.

Bannister said that the division is close to a "full nest" again, with nearly all units back from deployment, and noted that another -- the 10th Combat Aviation Brigade -- is scheduled to deploy to Germany in the fall.

Lt. Col. Donald Korpi, 10th Mountain Division PAO, contributed to this article.