The 18th Airborne Corps has launched an investigation into the leadership of the 101st Airborne Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade following a deployment to Europe last year, officials told Army Times Monday.
The inquiry by the headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, comes in the wake of a previous investigation that uncovered how one of the unit’s subordinate battalions broke Army rules by visiting a strip club during an official trip to Gdansk, Poland.
The battalion’s executive officer went missing for a day following a drunken nighttime outing in September, and he later claimed to investigators that he was drugged at the strip club and charged excessive amounts on his credit card.
Stars and Stripes first reported the new investigation, in addition to the original one.
Army Col. Joe Buccino, 18th Airborne Corps spokesman, confirmed that the headquarters had launched an investigation, but he revealed few other details.
“The investigation encompasses a series of allegations,” Buccino said in an email. “The investigating officer has been tasked with a through investigation and we do not have a [completion] timeline right now. No one has been suspended in concert with the investigation.”
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The investigator sent by 18th Airborne Corps is a colonel from outside the 101st Airborne Division. Col. Travis Habhab, the aviation brigade commander, informed his subordinate leaders of the investigation late last week.
The corps-level investigation indicates there could be problems within Habhab’s brigade that extend beyond what happened at the Polish strip club last fall, which ended with numerous officers facing early ends to their military careers, Stripes reported.
Stripes also obtained a command climate survey from the deployment for the brigade’s headquarters company. The survey indicated pervasive issues with suicidal thoughts and bullying in the unit.
In April, the brigade returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, from a nine-month rotation to Europe in support of Atlantic Resolve, an ongoing multinational response to Russian aggression in Ukraine.
There are approximately 6,000 soldiers participating in Atlantic Resolve “at any given time,” according to U.S. Army Europe and Africa.
Davis Winkie covers the Army for Military Times. He studied history at Vanderbilt and UNC-Chapel Hill, and served five years in the Army Guard. His investigations earned the Society of Professional Journalists' 2023 Sunshine Award and consecutive Military Reporters and Editors honors, among others. Davis was also a 2022 Livingston Awards finalist.
