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147th Command Aviation Battalion

1st Battalion 147th Aviation was reorganized from an attack battalion to a command aviation battalion in 1995. The unit has 14 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and about 250 members in Wisconsin, along with one company and seven helicopters in the Indiana Army National Guard. The new organization has a headquarters and headquarters company, two support aviation companies, a command aviation company, and an aviation unit maintenance company. One of the support aviation companies is stationed in Shelbyville, Indiana. The Command Aviation Battalion has 239 personnel with 99 personnel in the headquarters and headquarters company. There are 33 each in each of the aviation companies and 41 personnel in the unit maintenance company.

About 35 members of the Wisconsin Army National Guard unit left for a four-month mission in the Middle East in January 2002. The guardsmen from the 1st Battalion, 147th Aviation, were ordered to active duty for Operation Desert Spring in Kuwait. The unit's mission will be to deter Iraqi aggression in the region and, if deterrence fails, defend Kuwait. It was the third of four rotations to Kuwait for the Madison-based unit, which began its Kuwait mission in July 2001.

Members of the 1st Battalion/147th Aviation Regiment, a Wisconsin National Guard unit from Madison, train at Fort McCoy.

US Army vehicles from the 147th Aviation Battalion arrive by train at Biggs Army Airfield, El Paso, Texas, on April 17, 1997, for Exercise Roving Sands 97. More than 20,000 service members from all branches of the armed forces of the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands are participating in Exercise Roving Sands 97. The exercise is designed to refine their skills in operations using an integrated air defense network of ground, missile and radar early warning systems combined with tactical fighter and bomber aircraft operating in a simulated high-threat environment. The 147th provided UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter support during the exercise.

The 1-147th deployed to Southwest Asia in Feb. 2003 in support of the military build-up prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The completed its return to the United States in December 2003.