The Associated Press May 11, 2004
Tennessee's largest National Guard combat force is being mobilized...
Tennessee's largest National Guard combat force is being mobilized for active duty, officials said Tuesday.
The 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment is an approximately 4,000-soldier force outfitted with enough tanks and armored vehicles to fill 585 rail cars.
The last time the full regiment was deployed was the Korean War.
The Knoxville-based regiment has squadron headquarters in Athens, Kingsport and Cookeville and 30 armories scattered across Middle and East Tennessee.
The units will mobilize at their home stations in a phased in process June 7-26, said National Guard spokesman Randy Harris.
"Within a few days of their mobilization date they will move to their mobilization site at Camp Shelby (Mississippi)," Harris said.
Officials have not announced where the regiment's mission will be. Currently there are about 138,000 U.S. forces in Iraq. That number was to be reduced to about 115,000 this spring, but a surge in anti-occupation violence caused officials to bolster the force.
The 278th claims its roots in the pre-Revolutionary War militia that defended East Tennessee settlers from the Creek and Cherokee Indians. It takes its motto "I volunteer, sir!" from the Tennessee militiamen who fought in the 1846 War with Mexico.
Formed as the 278th Armored Infantry Battalion after World War II from a unit that fought at Normandy, the 278th Regimental Combat Team was last activated fully on Sept. 1, 1950, for the Korean War. It was released from federal service in 1954.
In recent years, the regiment provided flood assistance in Memphis, helped recover an F-14 fighter jet that crashed in Nashville in 1996, provided security at the Ocoee whitewater events for the 1996 Olympics, fought fires and aided search and rescue efforts in the Smoky Mountains and helped secure airports after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The regiment received extensive training in desert combat in 2002 during maneuvers at the Army's National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., in the Mohave Desert.
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On the Net:
278th: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/278acr.htm
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