80th Division (Institutional Training)
The 80th Division (Institutional Training) is made up of over 3,000 reservists assigned to 40 units in Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Its annual economic impact is about $25 million. In addition to the salaries of full-time civilian and military personnel, this figure also includes drill and annual training pay to reservists, money spent locally for the purchase of supplies, services, maintenance support, equipment, facility construction and renovation, and the G.I. Bill college tuition payments to reservists attending school.
In 1988 and again in 1990 the Division carried out its then-wartime mobilization mission with 10-week exercises named "Old Dominion Forward," conducted at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. With its drill sergeants rotating on 17-day cycles, the 80th set up a Mobilization Army Training Center (MATC) and trained nearly 700 new soldiers.
The Division moved into a new training mode in 1992 with a Training Base Expansion (TBE) at Fort Benning, Georgia. The following year it was replaced with Professional Roundout Training (PROTRAIN) missions at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where reservists worked side-by-side with the Active Army drill sergeants in training new soldiers.
As an Institutional Training Division, the 80th took command and control of 10 Army Reserve Forces Schools in October 1995. In September 1996 the Division reorganized into seven brigades. Four are chartered to give formal classroom and "hands on" training in Combat Support, Combat Services Support, Professional Development and Medical Services and one each will train Initial Entry soldiers and Initial Entry Military Police soldiers. One brigade will furnish Training Support to all the others.
Upon mobilization, the 80th Division will proceed to Fort McClellan, Alabama, and support expansion of the U.S. Army Training Center by conducting Basic Combat Training (BCT) and One Station Unit Training (OSUT) in Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) 54B (Chemical Operations Specialist) and MOS 95B (Military Police), using Mobilization Program of Instructions. The 80th will continue to provide specified instructor personnel from its school brigades, as directed, to any Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) installation to support MOS-specific training requirements.
The 80th Division (Institutional Training), as it is known today was constituted August 5, 1917, in the National Army as Headquarters, 80th Infantry Division and was activated later that month at Camp Lee (now Fort Lee), Virginia. Made up primarily of draftees from Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the new division was nicknamed the "Blue Ridge Division." The unit shoulder patch reflects this tradition with three mountain peaks representing the three states.
The 80th reached full strength of 23,000 soldiers and sailed for France, landing June 8, 1918 during World War I. By mid-August the Division completed training with the British Third Army and joined forces on the front lines, where it took part in the Somme and the Meuse-Argonne offensives. During the night of November 5, 1918, the 80th was replaced on the front lines by units of the 1st Division and held in reserve until the cessation of hostilities on November 11.
The 80th returned to the States in May 1919, and was inactivated at Camp Lee on June 26. It was reconstituted into the organized reserve on June 24, 1921 and organized September 1, 1922, at Richmond, Virginia. Because of funding and personnel shortages, Army Reserve divisions were never more than cadre units during the inter-war period.
On July 15, 1942, just 20 days short of its 25th birthday, the 80th Division was again ordered to active service. Soldiers reported to Camp Forest, Tennessee, and later trained at Camp Phillips, Kansas, and the California-Arizona maneuver area. On July 4, 1944, the 80th boarded the Queen Mary and a few days later landed at Greenock, Firth of Clyde, Scotland. It proceeded south to Northwich, England, for more training. The Division crossed the English Channel to France and began landing on Utah Beach shortly after noon on August 2, 1944. The 80th got its baptism of fire on August 8 when it took over the LeMans bridgehead in the XX Corps area.
During the next nine months the 80th served in General George S. Patton's Third Army, fighting its way across Northern France, Belgium, and into Germany. By war's end some 80th units had gotten as far as Austria and Czechoslovakia. Along the way the Division saved the City of Luxembourg from German troops commanded by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt during the Battle of the Bulge (the Ardennes Offensive), by making a 150-mile motorized march in just 36 hours to form a defensive line around the city. With the 4th Armored and 26th Infantry Divisions, the 80th Division's 2nd Battalion, 318th Infantry, and the 1st Battalion, 319th Infantry, helped relieve American forces surrounded at Bastogne.
The Division crossed the Our and Sauer rivers into Germany the first week of February 1945, breaking through the "West Wall." The advance moved with such speed that in one six-day period the Division covered 125 miles. By early April it crossed the Rhine River and took the industrial city of Kassel. Proceeding eastward, it also captured Gotha, Erfurt, and Weimar-Buchenwald (location of the infamous concentration camp). By V-E Day the 80th Division had amassed 277 days of combat and had captured more than 200,000 enemy soldiers.
The Division returned to the States in January 1946 and was placed on inactive status. Six months later it was redesignated as the Reserve Airborne Division. The Division was reorganized as a Reserve Infantry Division on May 10, 1952, and then as a Reserve Training Division on March 1, 1959. On October 1, 1994, the 80th was redesignated as an Institutional Training Division.
Two 80th Division units were called to active duty in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm. The 424th Transportation Company of Galax, Virginia, was activated November 17, 1990. After training and equipping at Fort Eustis, Virginia, it deployed to Saudi Arabia January 5, 1991. For its service in the war the 424th was awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation. It was cited for operating "... under adverse conditions in a combat zone, logging over 850,000 accident- free road miles, in the countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq." By the end of the war, elements of the 424th had advanced as far as the Euphrates River in support of coalition assault units. The 424th returned to the United States on June 29-30, 1991, and to home station July 3rd. Soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 318th Regiment, 4th Brigade, at Fort Story, Virginia, were activated January 23, 1991, and reported to Fort Eustis to train recalled reservists. Because of the short duration of the ground war in Iraq and Kuwait, additional Individual Ready Reserve troops were not called up and the 3rd Battalion was released from active duty and returned to home station March 17.
