FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - The original “Band of Brothers” has a new commander and will be getting a new home.
The 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment executed a change of command ceremony at Fort Campbell on Wednesday. At the end of the week, the regiment will move from the 4th Brigade Combat Team to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The move is being made as the Army shrinks its overall size as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wrap up.
The 4th Brigade, which is part of the 101st Airborne Division, became famous in a book by historian Stephen Ambrose and a subsequent HBO miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. It will be made inactivate Friday.
“It’s a family,” said the outgoing commander, Lt. Col. Gregory Beaudoin. “You just feel like a piece of you has been taken.”
The 1st Battalion has fought in every major U.S. conflict since being created in 1942 in Georgia and was recognized for its role at the Battle of Hamburger Hill during the Vietnam War in May 1969.
Lt. Col. David Waters will take command of the unit as it shifts to its new home, which is part of a reorganization that will see the Army inactivate 10 brigades and reduce the fighting force from a high of about 570,000 at the peak of the Iraq war to 490,000 - a reflection of budget cuts and of the country’s current military needs as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end.
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) - To help veterans leaving the military as it downsizes, the government on Wednesday started a one-stop job-shopping website for them to create resumes, connect with employers and become part of a database for companies to mine.
First lady Michelle Obama announced the new Veterans Employment Center at Fort Campbell, Ky., during a special veterans’ jobs summit, which comes as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down. Unemployment among veterans who have served since September 2001 stood at 9 percent in 2013, about 1.6 percentage points higher than the overall civilian population.
The website, ebenefits.va.gov, will help veterans and military spouses build resumes, translate military skills into private-sector skills and provide career and training data with the click of a mouse.
“It is our obligation to you,” Obama told hundreds of soldiers in a hangar on the sprawling military post on the Kentucky-Tennessee state line. “Your job is to take full advantage of these opportunities.”
The Army plans to reduce its fighting force from a high of about 570,000 at the peak of the Iraq war to 490,000 - a reflection of budget cuts and of the country’s current military needs as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end.
Col. David “Buck” Dellinger, the garrison commander of Fort Campbell, said about 5,000 of the 30,157 soldiers stationed at the post were in the midst of transitioning out of the Army and another 5,000 were within a year of being discharged.
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LA GRANGE, Ky. (AP) - An Oldham County school bus driver and bus monitor have resigned after a preschooler with special needs was left on the bus for at least three hours.
Oldham County schools spokeswoman Tracy Harris said driver Gregory Clickner and monitor Sharon Machi resigned Wednesday.
School Superintendent Will Wells told The Courier-Journal (https://cjky.it/1hl8U4Hhttps://cjky.it/1hl8U4H ) that drivers and monitors are trained to inspect buses after each route but that procedures weren’t followed Monday.
Harris said the child was in good health as of Wednesday.
The child’s father told police the child was picked up by a special needs bus at about 10:40 a.m. but wasn’t at school to be picked up shortly after 2 p.m. The child was found in the bus around 2:30 p.m. at the district’s bus depot in La Grange.
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TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - A onetime state trooper acquitted in the killings of his wife and two young children said in his first public appearance since his acquittal that he’s still grieving for his slain family.
WTHR-TV reports (https://bit.ly/Qz3M2Vhttps://bit.ly/Qz3M2V ) David Camm also said during Wednesday’s appearance at Indiana State University that it feels good not to be “surrounded by steel bars and concrete” after 13 years in prison.
Juries convicted Camm twice on murder charges in the September 2000 killings of his wife and two children at the family’s southern Indiana home. But those were overturned on appeal and an eight-week retrial last fall ended with a not-guilty verdict.
Camm fought back tears as he described how he still mourns for his family, saying “Time doesn’t heal. It just becomes a part of you.”
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Information from: WTHR-TV, https://www.wthr.com/https://www.wthr.com/
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