The 101st Airborne Division headquarters is coming home after a five-month deployment to West Africa.
The unit cased its colors Friday during a ceremony at the Barclay Training Center in Liberia, marking the end of Operation United Assistance for Joint Forces Command-United Assistance.
When they first deployed, based on the severity of the Ebola epidemic, the soldiers were expecting to remain in Liberia for nine to 12 months, said Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, commander of the 101st and JFC-United Assistance.
Estimates also called for a rotation of thousands of troops for up to 18 months, he said.
Instead, the soldiers rose to the occasion, he said.
"It is because of their hard work and dedication to this mission, a mission never undertaken by anyone before, that we were able to accomplish in just five short months what many thought would take a year and a half," Volesky said.
While in Liberia, the soldiers supported the U.S. Agency for International Development-led mission to fight the spread of the Ebola virus in western Africa, according to a Defense Department news article.
The 101st Airborne, of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, led Joint Forces Command-United Assistance. The command, which was made up of engineers, medical personnel, logisticians and others, built Ebola treatment units, trained health care workers and built a logistics infrastructure to support the ongoing activities.
Volesky credited his soldiers for the successful mission.
"Five months ago, we stood at this exact spot and uncased the colors of the 101st Airborne Division to mark the establishment of the … first Joint Forces Command ever established in West Africa," Volesky said during the colors casing ceremony. "That day was the day the United States military brought our full weight to bear in support of our government's response to contain the Ebola virus in Liberia."
During its time there, the command built and supported 17 Ebola treatment units throughout Liberia. These facilities allowed health care workers to more quickly isolate and treat Ebola patients.
U.S. troops also:
- Improved critical roads connecting personnel and equipment to the ETUs, camps, airports and sea ports.
- Built forward logistics bases to get supplies and equipment closer to remotely located ETUs.
- Placed four Army mobile testing labs in remote locations to better test blood samples of possible Ebola patients.
- Trained more than 1,500 health care workers in Monrovia and local communities across Liberia.
- Built the Monrovia Medical Unit, a facility designed to care for and treat health care workers who contract Ebola while caring for their patients.
While the 101st Airborne headquarters and much of the 2,800 U.S. troops deployed to Liberia are coming home, the U.S. efforts there are not done, with the ramping up its civilian-led response in coming weeks, officials said.
Of the 2,800 troops deployed, about 1,500 are already back in the United States. Nearly everyone else will be home by April 30, according to DoD.
After that date, a transition element of about 100 DoD personnel will remain in Liberia to respond to Ebola-related contingencies and expand security cooperation efforts.
"While our large-scale military mission is ending as the 101st departs Liberia, the fight to get to zero Ebola cases will continue," Volesky said, "and the JFC has ensured capabilities we brought will be sustained in the future."
Michelle Tan is the editor of Army Times and Air Force Times. She has covered the military for Military Times since 2005, and has embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Haiti, Gabon and the Horn of Africa.
