86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team | |
---|---|
Active | 1921 |
Country | United States |
Branch | United States Army |
Nickname(s) | The Vermont Brigade (special designation) |
Anniversaries | June 30, 1921 |
Decorations | Philippine Presidential Unit Citation, Streamer embroidered 17 October 1944 to 4 July 1945 (Headquarters and Headquarters Company) |
Commanders | |
Current commander |
Colonel Nathan F. Lord (since August, 2017) |
Notable commanders |
Leonard F. Wing Wayne H. Page Bruce M. Lawlor Thomas E. Drew |
Insignia | |
Combat service identification badge (CSIB) | |
Former CSIB |
The 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain) ("The Vermont Brigade") is an Army National Guard light infantry brigade headquartered in Vermont and is subordinate to the 10th Mountain Division (Regular Army), as part of the U.S. Army's Associated Units pilot. It was reorganized from an armored brigade into an Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) as part of the United States Army's transformation for the 21st century. The 86th IBCT utilizes the Army Mountain Warfare School, co-located at Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho, Vermont, to train in individual military mountaineering skills so the entire brigade can be skilled in such warfare. This large conventional unit level mountain warfare capability was lost when the 10th Mountain Division inactivated after World War II. This left the 86th IBCT as the only mountain warfare unit in the military and those trained in mountain warfare capabilities to individual soldiers who graduated from Ranger School, the mountain warfare school and the Special Forces Advanced Mountain Operations School, and the Army Mountain Warfare School instead of entire units that specialized in such tactics; that is until "The Vermont Brigade" configured itself to be such a unit.
The United States Army reorganized in the 1920s, following World War I. This reorganization included maintaining honors and legacy by reusing unit names for units deactivated after the war as designations for smaller formations. The 86th Infantry Brigade thus carried on the name of the 86th Infantry Division, and the 172nd Infantry Regiment, allocated to Vermont, carried on the designation of the 172nd Infantry Brigade, one of the 86th Division's subordinate brigades during the war. The 86th Infantry Brigade, made up of the 172nd (Vermont), 103rd (Maine and New Hampshire) and 102nd (Connecticut) Infantry Regiments, was organized as part of the 43rd Infantry Division.