Fort Campbell Losing Another 2,400 Soldiers In Army Downsizing

Soldiers from the 159th CAB, 101st Airborne Division conduct joint Medevac training. Credit: John Giaquinto via DVIDS

The 159th Combat Aviation Brigade based at Fort Campbell has likely flown its final mission. The Pentagon has reportedly chosen to phase out the unit as part of a larger Army restructuring related to sequestration.

Losing these helicopter pilots, crewmembers and maintenance staff would mean a reduction of 2,400 active-duty soldiers on post. Fort Campbell already lost the 4^th Brigade Combat Team as part of Army downsizing and Congressman Marsha Blackburn, whose district includes the post, says the cuts may continue.

“Until the President works with us on the issue of funding the military, our concern is you will see more of this,” she told WPLN Thursday.

Blackburn concedes that there will still be more troops based at Fort Campbell than there were before 9/11. But if the country is going to continue leaning on the military like it has in the fight against Ebola, Blackburn says deployable troops should not be on the chopping block.

The 159^th Combat Aviation Brigade’s last mission was to Afghanistan. The final soldiers returned in September.

Update 4:45 p.m., 11-21-14 – Nashville Democrat Jim Cooper, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, issued this statement on the deactivation:

“The men and women of the 159th are heroes who recently returned from Afghanistan. It’s a sad day to lose their historic unit, but I’m hopeful that the aviators and soldiers can get reassigned to other units if they choose. The problem is a budget issue called sequestration that Congress desperately needs to fix. The failure to fix this problem is already weakening our military readiness and will hurt our military much more than losing the 159th. Both political parties are to blame for sequestration.”