4th Cavalry Brigade
The 4th Cavalry Brigade is a US Army Reserve Training Support Brigade [TSB]. The Brigade's mission is to provide pre-mobilization leader and collective training assistance and support. The Brigade's main focus is providing training support, assistance, and evaluation to client units. The Brigade also provides assistance to civilian authorities during peacetime crises and/or natural disasters.
The distinctive unit insignia was approved on 25 February 1998. Gold/yellow is the color traditionally associated with the Cavalry units. Red symbolizes valor and sacrifice; gold denotes excellence. The star, indicating achievement, hightlight the unit's five campaign particiaption credits World War II. The crossed sabers reflect teamwork and underscore the heritage of the Cavalry.
In March 1998, the ADA Battery, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR), of the Tennessee Army National Guard had its first ever lanes training, which the ADA Resident Training Detachment (RTD) Team set up and "O/Cd" with help from the 4th Cavalry Brigade, Fort Knox, Kentucky. The Stinger teams successfully performed collective tasks such as: Providing Air Defense for a Static Asset (44-3-4007) and Providing Air Defense for a Convoy (44-5-4015). This led to the first integrated annual training with the regiment in May 1998 at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The Stingers provided air defense for the Regimental Support Area (RSA), and one BSFV crew maneuvered with the 3rd Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment.
Members of the 85th Training Support Division conducted mobilization training for nearly 780 National Guard soldiers from Kentucky and Ohio in late 2001. Guardsman from the 1st Battalion, 149th Infantry Brigade, located in Barboursville, Kentucky and the 1st Battalion, 148th Infantry Brigade, from Lima, Ohio, spent more than a week undergoing intense, mission-focused training under the watchful eye of the 85th Division trainers in preparation for their mission to provide Military Support to Civilian Authorities as part of Homeland Security efforts. The trainers, usually referred to as Observer Controller/Trainers or "OC/Ts", from the 4th Cavalry Brigade of the 85th Division played an integral part in mobilizing and training these units. The primary mission is to mobilize and validate Army National Guard units in support of Operation Noble Eagle. Supporting that effort, the [4th] Cavalry Brigade provides focused training through the development and execution of both Homeland Security Individual Readiness Training (HSIRT) and Stability and Support Operations (SASO) Lanes.
Validation of unit readiness for the Homeland Security mission consisted of successful completion of two phases: HSIRT and SASO.
The first phase, HSIRT, focused primarily on honing individual solider skills. In this phase the Guardsmen trained on force protection measures such as how to conduct a vehicle search, how to engage members of the media in a professional manner, how to efficiently evacuate the ill or wounded, how to conduct checkpoint operations in order to ensure unauthorized personnel are not given access to military installations.
The second phase, SASO, was a 2-day exercise conducted at the Fort Knox Mounted Urban Combat Training Center, which simulated a federal installation that has been infiltrated by terrorists. This portion of the training was designed to evaluate how each unit incorporated the skills it learned during phase one in a collective environment.
Training was complete for the Ohio and Kentucky guardsmen when their 4th Cavalry Brigade trainers certified they were proficient in the skills needed to assume their Homeland Security duties. The two National Guard battalions deployed to conduct homeland defense measures at various federal installations within the continental United States.
Nearly sixteen months after the end of the Civil War, an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States" authorized the formation of two regiments of cavalry composed of "colored" men. The act was approved on 28 July 1866. On 21 September 1866, the 9th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Greenville, Louisiana, and the 10th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Under the competent leadership of Colonels Edward Hatch and Benjamin Grierson, first Regimental Commanders of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, respectively, both regiments were trained and equipped and began a long and proud history.
For over two decades, the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments conducted campaigns against American Indian tribes on a Western Frontier that extended from Montana in the Northwest to Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in the Southwest. They engaged in several skirmishes against such great Indian Chiefs as Victorio, Geronimo, and Nana. "Buffalo Soldiers" was the name given the black cavalrymen by the Plains Indians. Reason for the name is uncertain.
Elements of both regiments fought in Cuba during the War with Spain and participated in the famous charge on San Juan Hill. Troopers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment rode with General John J. Pershing during the Punitive Expedition in Mexico in search of Pancho Villa. In 1941, the two regiments formed the 4th Cavalry Brigade, commanded by General Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., at Camp Funston, Kansas.
Placed on the rolls of the Army in 1921, the 2d Cavalry Division was not activated until April 1941. As part of the Protective Mobilization Plan, the division was reserved for activation at Fort Riley, Kansas, but due to manpower constraints it never reached full strength. The 2d received the appropriate number of cavalry regiments, but units providing the organic support and service troops remained unfilled. The first divisional activations came in October 1940, with the organization of the 3d Cavalry Brigade and the assignment of the 2d and 14th Cavalry. The 4th Cavalry Brigade activated during February 1941 with the 9th and 10th Cavalry as its cavalry regiments. These last two regiments, the only two available for assignment, were black units. The division, therefore, was unique to Army structure at that time, a racially mixed unit.
Split between Fort Riley and Camp Funston, Kansas, neither post having adequate facilities for the division's horse cavalry, personnel shortages continued and divisional elements were activated using provisional assets. General Milliken, the 2d Cavalry Division commander in June 1941, envisioned a combined use of mechanized and horse cavalry within the division. During July, Troop A, 2d Reconnaissance Squadron, was formed provisionally as a mechanized divisional element. The division, now organized with horses, scout cars, jeeps and motorcycles, spent most of the rest of the summer training with its new equipment.
The 2d Cavalry Division participated in the Second Army Maneuvers of late August as a component of the Red Forces facing the VII Corps' Blue Army. Given the task of capturing Arkansas and Louisiana, the 2d's mission ended on 9 September with divisional elements at Chatham, Louisiana. During the next week the division became part of a second training operation. This time the division served with the Second Army's Red Force, now challenging the Third Army's Blue Force. Second Army's first goal was to defeat and remove the Blue Forces from southern Louisiana, and then to keep the enemy from capturing Shreveport. At the close of these maneuvers the 2d Cavalry Division returned to Kansas, having prevailed with Blue Forces still forty miles from the city.
By November the 2d possessed a number of its organic support troops, although most were still functioning in a provisional status. The end of the month found the division involved in another set of training maneuvers. The operation, "PRACTICE BLITZKRIEG", was based in Kansas and finished with the 2d Cavalry Division's capture of Topeka. The exercise ended when the divisional military police unit seized the governor who feigned a surrender of the state.
The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor triggered fears of assaults on the west coast and invasion threats from south of the border. A new emphasis was placed on the continent's western defenses and the division deployed its 3d Brigade to Arizona. General Coulter, the brigade commander, was also given command of the Southern Land Frontier Sector of the Western Defense Command. Under him the 2d Cavalry, stationed at Phoenix, and the 14th Cavalry at Tucson, patrolled the Mexican Border for the next seven months. Meanwhile the 4th Cavalry Brigade, still at Camp Funston, continuing an endless cycle of training. Constantly called on to provide cadre for new units, the 9th and 10th Cavalry routinely lost veteran personnel and received untrained recruits.
During the spring of 1942 a War Department decision to increase the number of armored divisions within the United States Army resulted in the planned conversion of the 2d Cavalry Division. White troops in the 3d Brigade were used in the formation of the 9th Armored Division. The 2d and 14th Cavalry were inactivated and their personnel transferred into the newly formed 2d and 14th Armored Regiments, both elements of the new armored division. On 15 July 1942 the 2d Cavalry Division was inactivated. The 4th Cavalry Brigade with its black regiments, however, remained active.
The activation of the 9th Armored Division created logistical problems at Fort Riley and Camp Funston. The installations that had accommodated a single division were now home to a division and an additional cavalry brigade. Consequently, the 4th Cavalry Brigade Headquarters and the 10th Cavalry, relocated to Camp Lockett, California. The 9th Cavalry, although still assigned to the brigade, moved to Fort Clarke, Texas.
As the number of black personnel entering the Army rose, the need for negro units for these soldiers to join also increased. In November 1942 the War Department directed that the 2d Cavalry Division would be reactivated, and that two new black regiments would be assigned. It was also announced that the 2d, now the Army's third black division, would remain divided between Texas and California. Construction was started at both posts since neither had the facilities to support an entire division. The work completed, the 2d Cavalry Division activated on 25 February 1943 with Headquarters at Fort Clarke. The 9th and 27th Cavalry, active at the Texas post, were the assigned troops of the 5th Cavalry Brigade. The 10th and 28th Cavalry, located at Camp Lockett, made up the 4th Cavalry Brigade.
Filled using recruits straight from the induction centers, the 2d Division spent most of the spring and summer of 1943 training its soldiers. The division provided these men with their basic training as well as instruction in Cavalry operations. The divisional training as a whole, however, would not be tested. Stating that there was no intrinsic need for a second cavalry division, the War Department had devised a plan to use the 2d Cavalry Division personnel to form needed service units. Black community leaders, reacting against the criticism of the performance of negroes in combat units, protested the possible conversion of the division. The debate over the capabilities of black units continued but the decision concerning the status of the 2d Cavalry Division was already made. The War Department ordered the division to be shipped overseas where the conversion would take place. During January 1944 the 2d Cavalry Division was dismounted and shipped back east for deployment abroad. Arriving in North Africa during March, the division began losing its elements that same month. Divisional units were inactivated and their personnel funneled into support and service units. The 2d Cavalry Division was inactivated on 10 May 1944 off the North African coast and has not been active since that time.
