5th Brigade Combat Team 'Red Team'
As part of the Army's transformation towards a modular force, the 5th Brigade Combat Team was inactivated at Fort Hood on May 26, 2005.
This unit exemplifies some combination of the dire straits in which the Army finds itself, and the great ingenuity with which the Army is improvising solutions. It is frequently observed that Brigades are "task organized" -- that is, that the Brigade Combat Team [BCT] goes onto the battlefield with an assemblage of units with which it does not have a peacetime association. Normally, however, the command element of the BCT is a headquarters company of a maneuver brigade, and the other units of the BCT are all drawn from the same division, and performing the functions for which they were organized, trained and equipped during peacetime. This BCT violates all of these rules. The BCT is called "Red Team" because the 1st CAV's DIVARTY [Division Artillery] Brigade is the "Red Team", and it appears that the BCT leadership is from the DIVARTY. The line battalions of the BCT are drawn from 1st Cav, 1st Armored, and 82nd Airborne. Along with two cavalry Squadrons and on infantry battalion, the BCT includes two field artillery battalions and an air defense battalion which have been partially re-equipped, and assigned various force protection duties. The ADA unit has only been "partially" re-equipped, since they are doing convoy escort duty in their Avenger HMMWVs.
The 1st Cavalry Division's 5th Brigade Combat Team assumed the mission of securing Baghdad's Al Rashid District from the 1st Armored Division's Division Artillery Combat Team at a transfer-of-authority ceremony 06 April 2004. Col. Stephen Lanza was the 1st Cavalry's 5th Brigade Combat Team, or Red Team, commander. Since arriving in Iraq a year ago, the 1st Armored's DivArty Combat Team had completed a number of different missions. The DIVARTY Combat Team, the 1st Battalion, 94th Field Artillery Regiment, and the 1st Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, led the force protection package at Baghdad International Airport. Later, the unit set up a counter-battery center to combat the mortar and rocket fire into the airport and 1st Armored's headquarters. In January 2004, they moved to Forward Operating Base Falcon (since renamed Camp Ferrin-Huggins). The 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment and Task Force 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment were later added to the DIVARTY Combat Team and assumed responsibility of the city's Al Rashid District.
The 304th Iraqi Civil Defense Corps battalion recently ran a recruiting drive here with help from the 1st Cavalry Division's 5th Brigade Combat Team (BCT). Charged with internal Iraqi homeland security, the ICDC is expected to eventually replace the Coalition forces that are currently providing security in Baghdad. The recruiting drive was part of 5th BCT's mission of training the ICDC to operate independently of the Coalition. While previous recruiting drives were organized and managed by 5th BCT Soldiers, this time ICDC Soldiers ran the drive themselves. The 5th BCT Soldiers fell back into an advisory role, to ensure no preferences are given to specific families, tribes or religions.
The Iraqi Intervention Forces' 2nd Battalion "Leopards" made history July 31 at Camp Ferrin-Huggins in Baghdad when the unit formally took responsibility for part of the 1st Cavalry Division's 5th Brigade Combat Team's area of operations. This is the first time that an IIF unit has taken control of a sector. What they bring to the table is new capabilities," said Col. Stephen Lanza, 5th BCT commander. The Leopards' leadership uncased the battalion's colors to signify the unit's activation and assumption of Abu Dashir of the Al Rashid district. The 1st Cavalry Division's 5th BCT patrols Baghdad's Al Rashid. The 5th BCT's C Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, used to patrol the area.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, the 5th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division plans to help the people of Al Rashid solve their sewage problems. At a ground breaking ceremony to replace a faulty sewage pumping station in Al Rashid May 26, Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the 1st Cavalry Division commander, explained the plan for overhauling the district's neglected sewage system. With $40 million from the Coalition Provisional Authority approved for the project, Iraqi contractors will do most of the work with oversight from the 5th BCT and an American contractor. Capt. Matthew McCulley, the Company B commander, 8th Engineer Battalion, explained that Al Rashid's sewage problem is largely a result of the district's trash problem. McCulley said "the biggest problem is just the trash getting into the system and people throwing trash in the manholes, causing the system to block up and backlog." To fix the broken system, 5th BCT is working on projects to solve the area's lack of trash-collection facilities. The 5th BCT will contract local Iraqi companies to clean manholes, fix broken lines and get substations running at 100 percent capacity. In addition to fixing the existing system, the plan calls for building new lines to areas that never had sewer service. In these areas, raw sewage currently runs from homes into open canals that run through the center of town.
Two Soldiers, uncle and nephew, godfather and godson, command sergeant major and specialist, served together in Baghdad with the 5th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division. Currently in his third assignment with the First Team, Command Sgt. Maj. Gerald Schindler had been with Division Artillery, the original 5th BCT, for almost six years. More recently, in 2002, the younger Schindler came to Red Team for his first duty assignment. The specialist said it's a different situation talking to his uncle here, versus seeing him at family gatherings in Marine City. They have a more professional relationship here.
Christmas came early during the first joint cordon-and-search of "Cambodia" that netted five large caches of weapons and improvised explosive devices (IED) and four suspected anti-Iraqi forces July 20. Units from the 1st Cavalry Division's 5th Brigade Combat Team, and the Iraqi National Guard (ING) launched the first major maneuver out of the brigade's usual area of responsibility. Some of the most significant finds included a 500-pound air droppable bomb, a surface-to-air missile and 48 rocket-propelled grenades. A few smaller weapons and ammunition were also found. This mission was significant, because for the first time the brigade had sent units out of their zone in a major operation to search for caches and insurgent cells, Leiker said. That area has been regarded for some time as a sanctuary for insurgents. Some have even called it "Cambodia" a historical reference to how the North Vietnamese Army used Cambodia as a sanctuary during the Vietnam War.
As the 5th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, plan to improve agriculture in Al Rashid, members of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment civil affairs team, presented farmers of Al Boetha with more than 68 tons of seed, fertilizer and other supplies at the Al Ahar School 04 August 2004. The seed delivery started July 6. The distribution is one of many to take over two weeks, just in time for the second planting season. The brigade will distribute approximately 2,200 tons of these supplies among 80,000 family farms in Al Rashid. The agriculture project, which also includes animal vaccinations that took place earlier this summer, cost $600,000. Company A, 489th Civil Affairs Battalion, coordinated the supply distribution, with the assistance of the 5th Brigade Combat Team line battalions. They both work hand in hand with the sheiks and neighborhood advisory councils to identify the power brokers for their areas. Once they have done that, they determine how many farmers there are and what they need in each area. The seed distribution is such a simple project, but agriculture affects around 85 percent of Al Rashid's population, so the impact will be enormous. Since the seed distribution, mortar fire on Camp Ferrin-Huggins has reduced drastically. With these improvements, the 5th BCT agriculture team and civil affairs hope to help out the people of Al Rashid starting at the lowest level possible.
