Army turns out lights on 3rd Brigade during Kelley Hill ceremony
Retired Army Gen. William W. Hartzog sat at the corner of a tent on a parade field at Kelley Hill as rain pelted the soldiers in formation before him.
During a wet and somber ceremony, the colors for the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, which had called Fort Benning home for the last 20 years, were cased. The unit can trace its history back to World War I. In recent years, it has been the muscle in the Global War on Terror.
And Hartzog, who retired in 1998 as a four-star general in charge of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, just watched, looking straight ahead like a good soldier watching the unit march in the history books.
“I was here at the beginning and I named it the Sledgehammer Brigade,” said the 74-year-old retired officer, who came from Maryland to attend the ceremony, “and I wanted to be here when it rolled its colors.”
And so he was.
The Sledgehammer Brigade was eliminated last year as the Army began to reduce the size of the force. With the official inactivation of the unit, it leaves 31 brigades in the U.S. Army and a huge hole on Kelley Hill.
Maj. Gen. James E. Rainey, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division and formerly commandant of the Infantry School, returned to Fort Benning to direct the ceremony. Rainey shared a story he said summed up the attitude and spirit of a brigade that at one point during the Global War on Terror was the most deployed unit in the Army. He recounted a conversation with Gen. Dan Allyn, the Army’s vice chief of staff who commanded the 3rd Brigade during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“He told the story of the initial invasion of Iraq and sealing the fate of our enemy,” Rainey said.
They had moved north of Baghdad in the offensive.
“He pulled up next to a tank and started talking to a young sergeant. And that sergeant said, ‘What’s next, sir?’” Rainey said. “‘What’s next, sir?’ That is kind of how this unit has fought, whether you are talking about 197th in Desert Storm, World War I, World War II, any of those fights — what’s next?”
Rainey called it a hard, solemn day for all of those who served in and were touched by the 3rd Brigade.
“There’s a couple of things you can take from this,” he said. “The first one is you don’t get to pick your mission. That is not how it works. We serve at the behest of the president, Congress and our leadership. But you absolutely get to decide if you are going to be excellent at it. And you absolutely get to decide whether you are going to win.”
A leader’s role is to be optimistic, Rainey said, as he pointed to what he found positive about the end.
“If you are looking for something to be optimistic about,” he said, “and it was hard, but I think I found it — and it is this: As we shut down this great brigade, the men and women who leave here are going to spread that excellence, that Sledgehammer ethic — that not fancy, just tough, that win every fight you are in — they are going to spread that ethic throughout the 3rd Infantry Division, throughout Fort Benning and throughout the entire Army. It is going to make the Army better.”
Brig. Gen. Pete Jones, commandant of the Infantry School, commanded the 3rd Brigade from 2008 through early 2011.
“You can’t take away the sadness, but what you heard today is, the legacy of this brigade is in its people,” Jones said. “... This is a leadership laboratory.”
But it leaves a hole at Fort Benning that will be difficult to fill, Jones said.
“Probably the greatest benefit — and will be the future challenge — is the partnership this brigade had with TRADOC and being part of the (Maneuver Center of Excellence),” Jones said. “It allowed us to garner the lessons learned and benefit from the training because we lived here. Also, at the same time, it allowed our soldiers and their families transition from being those trainers and coming back to the operational Army and serving again.”
Col. Michael J. Simmering and Brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel J. Roark were the two men charged with turning out the lights. Simmering paused and gathered his thoughts as he recognized Roark.
“We said yesterday we wish we had just one more hour,” Simmering said as troops from the 28th Infantry Regiment stood before him.
The battalion-sized regiment was formed last year as a task force with some of the personnel from the 3rd Brigade.
Lt. Col. Jimmy Hathaway has spent much of his Army career in the 3rd Brigade and said a lot of feelings came to the surface.
“This unit has shouldered the burden, especially when it came to the Iraq side of the house,” Hathaway said. “The 3rd ID is very much a home for a lot of us. It will always be a home for us no matter what. You can go back to Rock of the Marne. There is a lot of prestige that went with this unit and there always will be.”
Sgt. 1st Class Alwyn Cashe, who was killed in Iraq when his Bradley was hit by a roadside bomb in 2005, signifies what this unit was about, Hathaway said.
“Not fancy, just tough,” Hathaway said. “He did what he was supposed to do. He ran back into a burning Bradley and helped pull his guys out to take care of his guys. He embodies it. He gave more of himself and that describes this unit. They were always there.”
Chuck Williams: 706-571-8510, @chuckwilliams
This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 3:18 PM with the headline "Army turns out lights on 3rd Brigade during Kelley Hill ceremony."