Cold War
The 508th was reactivated as the separate 508th Airborne Regimental Combat Team 1951 at (Fort Benning, Ga) Fort Bragg, North Carolina, served in Japan, and later moved to Fort Campbell where it once again inactivated in March 1957 as part of the reactivation of the 101st Airborne Division.
When the Army abandoned the Pentomic battle group structure in the early 1960s, the 508th reorganized under the Combat Arms Regimental System as a parent regiment and at the same time was renamed the 508th Infantry. Within the 82nd Airborne Division, the former Company A, 508th PIR was reorganized and re-designated as HHC, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 508th Infantry, an element of the 3rd Brigade. The former Company B, 508th PIR was reactivated as HHC, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 508th Infantry, part of the 1st Brigade. The 1st and 2nd Battalions, 508th Infantry continued to serve in the 82d Airborne Division. They served in Operation Powerpack in the Dominican Republic in 1965 and 1966.
When the 3rd Brigade was sent to Vietnam in response to the Tet Offensive in early 1968, 1-508th accompanied it. There it took part of the heavy fighting of Hue and Saigon. It was later awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. In 1983 both battalions served in the Operation Urgent Fury with the invasion of Grenada.
From 8 August 1962 to 26 June 1968, the lineage of Co C, 508 PIR was reactivated as HHC, 3-508th INF, and the unit served as an airborne battalion within the 193rd Infantry Brigade in Panama. When the Airborne component of the battalion was reduced to a single company (Co A), the battalion was reflagged as the 3rd Battalion, 5th Infantry.
In October 1983, the 1st Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, also deployed to Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury.
The colors of 1st Battalion, 508th and 2nd Battalion, 508th Infantry departed the 82d Airborne Division during an Army-wide reflagging of combat units in the 1980s, leaving the division with battalions of the 325th, 504th, and 505th within the 2nd, 1st and 3d Brigades, respectively.
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Famous quotes containing the words cold and/or war:
“With his great white strong cold squares of teeth
And his little eyes of stone ...”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Haven’t you heard, though,
About the ships where war has found them out
At sea, about the towns where war has come
Through opening clouds at night with droning speed
Further o’erhead than all but stars and angels
And children in the ships and in the towns?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)