11th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
The Army Reserve's 11th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was attached to the 97th Army Reserve Command at Fort Meade. For a number of years in the late 60's, Miller Field was home to the headquarters of the Army's 11th Special Forces Group. In the U.S. military, the tradition of military "challenge" coins goes back to the early 1960s. A member of the 11th Special Forces Group took old coins, had them over stamped with a different emblem, then presented them to unit members.
In November 1990 the Department of Defense developed budget guidance that directed the deactivation of three Army National Guard and three Army Reserve Special Forces battalions. The Department subsequently rescinded the deactivation plans for the three Army Reserve battalions pending the results of the Command's joint mission analysis. Conferees for the 1993 Department of Defense Appropriations Act included in their report the expectation that the Army Special Operations Command would maintain existing Army National Guard Special Operations units through fiscal year 1993 and rejected any plan or initiative to expand the active component special operations forces to replace these National Guard units. The conferees further noted that in the fiscal year 1992 Defense Appropriations Act, Congress had limited any conversion of National Guard missions to the active components. The Command's analysis validated the need to deactivate the six battalions, in the 11th (reserves) and 19th Special Forces Groups. Instead, the 11th and 12th Special Forces Group (Airborne), both US Army Reserve units, were inactivated on 15 September 1995.
