Airborne (1997) by Tom Clancy Page B

personnel strong, which is a formidable force in itself. It has four divisions (3rd Mechanized Infantry, 10th Mountain (Light), 82nd Airborne, and 101st Air Assault) that make up 50,000 of the 85,000 personnel on strength. The other 35,000 are assigned to the thirteen separate [attached] brigades. Certainly in the U.S. Army, there is no parallel for that type of an organization, with that particular mission, and also with the enormous versatility that we bring to bear. Now, with regards to the individual units, let’s run them down:
    82nd Airborne Division (the “All Americans”). They represent a completely unique capability as the only parachute division in the U.S. Army. It is a strategic response force in the sense that from the time that they receive an alert order, within eighteen hours they can begin movement to virtually any place in the world. That is a formidable capability, and it is clearly an instrument that the NCAs have at their fingertips to use. I do believe that it is also a deterrence force as well, because its capabilities are well known. Any country is very rapidly approachable by the 82nd, and they know that we have the aircraft and resources to get our soldiers and their equipment there very quickly. The 82nd, probably more than any other division in our Army, sends a message when it is deployed. When we commit the 82nd, it’s an expression of the political will of the nation. It’s also a statement to anybody who is involved or observing that the United States is really serious. They have just put their best on their airplanes, and they are coming!
    One interesting thing about the 82nd, though. When people think of the 82nd, they certainly think of the paratroopers with their rifles, packs, and machine guns. But it’s much more than that. When the 82nd goes someplace, it takes lots of combat power with it. We deliver parachute artillery with them, along with air defense systems, command and control vehicles, and all the other instruments of war the 82nd needs to do its business. This gives them a lot of combat power upon arrival!
    101st Air Assault Division (the “Screaming Eagles”). Another unique organization, one of the two specialized divisions in the XVIII Airborne Corps and our Army. Like the 82nd, it was born out of the history of the airborne and its rich tradition. It still has the same esprit and spirit that it has always had. Its special capability is that it can take, within a theater of operations (like the Persian Gulf or the Balkans), brigade-sized task forces and move them out to distances of up to 93 mi/150 km ahead of the forward lines, and do it within hours. It’s the only organization of this kind in the world that can do something like that. During Desert Storm, they moved 155 mi/250 km deep into Iraq in just twenty-four hours, a maneuver that today is still being studied by military academicians. It was an incredible performance. How they were able to move so far, so fast, into the northwest part of the Area of Operations [AOR] is still a marvel to most folks. Then General Schwarzkopf ordered them within a day or so to move to Basra, over on the eastern side of the AOR, flying across corps and divisions to accomplish the task. Making a lateral move of this sort was unheard of in military operations. Since they operate independent of the tyranny of terrain, their mobility gives them an enormous capability. It is a very flexible organization, and with seventy-two AH-64 Apache attack helicopters as part of their organization, they pack one hell of a wallop!
    10th Mountain Division (Light). 9 The 10th Mountain Division is our foot-infantry division. Our lightest force, and smallest in terms of personnel and equipment, even compared to the 82nd. By way of comparison, the 10th Mountain has 8,700 personnel compared with 15,000 for the 82nd and 17,000 for the 101st. Those 8,700 soldiers are split between a pair of foot-infantry brigades with a very high leader-to-led ratio, not