FORT CAMPBELL

History made as 101st gets dealt a 'Blue Spade'

Philip Grey

The Leaf-Chronicle

The colors of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment were unfurled at Freedom Fighter Gym at Fort Campbell on Tuesday morning, as the 2nd Brigade Combat Team became the last within the 101st Airborne to receive a third infantry battalion.

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – History was made in a couple of different ways on Tuesday at Fort Campbell as the 101st Airborne Division's "Strike" Brigade added a new infantry battalion to the fold.

The 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment "Blue Spaders" are the newest Screaming Eagle infantry unit and its oldest — legacy-wise — going back to its inception on Christmas Day in 1900, nearly 42 years before the division was founded in the early days of World War II.

The unit is also the first infantry unit without an airborne legacy to be added to the 101st Airborne Division ranks since WWII.

That doesn't mean it doesn't have a history worthy of comparison to any in the division, with a regimental legacy that includes five Medal of Honor recipients and service in every conflict since 1900, except Korea. Most of that service has been under the flag of the 1st Infantry Division, "The Big Red One." The unit's last stop was Fort Knox prior to assignment at Fort Campbell.

The unit unfurled its colors at Freedom Fighter Gym on Tuesday where 2nd Brigade Combat Team commander Col. Peter Benchoff handed the colors to the 1-26th Infantry's newest commander, Lt. Col. Ryan Wylie, who passed the colors to Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Bartel, completing the short ceremony.

'Shared purpose, esprit and honor'

For veteran Blue Spaders like James Michael Crain, who served as a first lieutenant with 1-26 in Vietnam, it was a matter of immense pride to see the unit reborn under the colors of the 101st Airborne.

As Command Sgt. Major Matthew Bartel, right, watches, Lt. Col. Ryan Wylie accepts command of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment “Blue Spaders” from 2nd Brigade Combat Team commander Col. Peter Benchoff.

Crain was there when the 101st took responsibility for the 1-26 area in Vietnam in late 1967, and though the units never fought side-by-side, in the words of Col. Benchoff during his remarks on Tuesday, "we certainly fought close by, at Normandy, in the Ardennes, in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan."

"What we lack in shared history, we more than make up for in shared purpose, esprit and honor," Benchoff said.

Veterans like Crain definitely don't take a backseat on pride. Asked how he felt seeing the 1-26 flag at Fort Campbell, he smiled and said, "I think the 101st Airborne will be much improved."

"I told one of the soldiers the other day," Crain said, with the smile a little wider, "if the 101st starts giving you grief about Bastogne, just mention while they were being bypassed by a Panzer Corps, our second battalion stopped the Hitlerjungen Panzer Division in their tracks during the Battle of the Bulge."

Another 1-26 veteran present was the Honorary Colonel of the 26th Infantry Regiment Association, Randall Dragon of Roundhill, Virginia, who commanded the 1st battalion while it was stationed in Germany in the late 1990s, through deployments in both Macedonia and Kosovo. Later he commanded the parent brigade, the 2nd brigade of the Big Red One, in Kosovo and Iraq.

"It's important," he said following the ceremony, "that these soldiers know much history and sweat and blood has gone before them."

Making 'something great'

In the 1-26 area in the Strike Brigade's new home on Fort Campbell, the former "footprint" of the "Currahee" Brigade, the history of the Blue Spaders, named for their distinctive insignia, covers the walls of the battalion headquarters. It's an impressive record, told in pictures, relics and words.

In a hallway filled with history, Lt. Col. Ryan Wylie and Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Bartel stand proudly with the newly unfurled colors of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment “Blue Spaders,” now part of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

"We instill it in the soldiers, how old this unit is, how awesome their legacy is," said Bartel, the unit's top noncommissioned officer who came over from within the Strike Brigade. "You incorporate that into the history of the 101st and you have something special to move on with."

Moving on at this point, with the unit up to 70 percent strength and climbing, means hard training and especially getting their soldiers qualified to wear the Air Assault Badge. The 1-26 has already made impressive strides toward that goal, placing and graduating more than 30 soldiers at a time in each new air assault class.

"I see this as a great opportunity," said Wylie, the commander charged with rebuilding the battalion from the ground floor. "We're going to be as good as all of the members of this team make it.

"The opportunity to build a new unit in the 101st is unprecedented, and we have the ability to shape that unit into something great."

Philip Grey, 245-0719

Military affairs reporter

philipgrey@theleafchronicle.com

Twitter: @PhilipGrey_Leaf