Army Announces Deployments to Kuwait, Afghanistan

The U.S. Army announced Thursday it will deploy an armored brigade combat team and a combat aviation brigade to the Middle East this winter.

About 3,800 soldiers from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, will deploy to Kuwait in support of combatant command mission requirements, according to an Army press release.

"Our nation's Army continues to call on the 1st Cavalry Division to serve across the globe. The latest to be called is our 3rd ABCT," said Maj. Gen. John C. Thomson, 1st Cavalry Division commander.

"Greywolf troopers have demonstrated a high level of proficiency with rigorous home-station training and a successful National Training Center rotation in October. They are prepared to execute their assigned mission for Central Command."

The Defense Department announced Wednesday the death of Army Sgt. First Class Allan E. Brown, who died of wounds received last month in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed two other 1st Cavalry Division soldiers.

Brown, 46, of Takoma Park, Maryland, died Tuesday at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, of wounds suffered at the Bagram air base north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Nov. 12, according to a release from Fort Hood.

Two other division soldiers, Sgt. John W. Perry, 30, of Stockton, California, and Pfc. Tyler R. Iubelt, 20, of Tamaroa, Illinois, were killed in the same incident, believed to be an insider attack by an Afghan worker on the base wearing a suicide vest.

Brown, who was on his sixth deployment to a combat zone, was assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Sustainment Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, at Fort Hood since July 2012.

More Troops to Afghanistan

The Army also announced that about 800 soldiers from the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, 7th Infantry Division, stationed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, will deploy to Afghanistan as part of a regular rotation of forces in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel.

"The soldiers of the Raptor Brigade have worked very hard to build readiness over the last year, and I am extremely confident in their ability to accomplish our upcoming mission," said Col. William A. Ryan, 16th Combat Aviation Brigade commander.

"We employ some of the Army's most advanced aviation technology, but it is our tremendous team of Army professionals that will ensure mission success."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.