The storied lineage of the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade has taken them to the battlefields of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan during its history, as the brigade trains constantly to maintain combat readiness for such conflicts. As part of the brigade’s focus on readiness, Task Force Lobos, 2nd Battalion, 2-227th Aviation Regiment, 1st ACB, 1st Cavalry Division, has been an active participant in Allied Spirit 22, an exercise comprising over 5000 Soldiers from 15 nations that is designed to enable integration of the U.S. military and its allies in a competitive combat training environment.
The exercise concludes January 31 and is being held at the at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels Training Area, where the 2-227th has set up temporary airfield operations in support of the exercise. The battalion is providing air support to its multinational partners with a combination of attack aviation, heavy lift and command control aircraft. So far Allied Spirit 22 has been challenging and fulfilling, both necessary to achieve a sense of interoperability and working in tandem with other militaries. Ultimately Allied Spirit 22 comes down to training, which is paramount for the battalion.
The Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division is a divisional aviation brigade of the United States Army. The history of combat aviation in the 1st Cavalry Division goes back to 1963, when the Army began to gather helicopters into the 11th Aviation Group, 11th Air Assault Division (Test) at Fort Benning, Georgia, to test the airmobile concept. The lineage of the Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division began when it was constituted on 1 September 1984 in the Regular Army as Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, and activated at Fort Hood, Texas. It was reorganized and redesignated on 16 October 1996 as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Aviation Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.
