Cold War Service
After a brief period of occupation duty, the division returned to Fort Hood, Texas, in 1946 to retrain and rebuild. The 2nd Armored Division returned to Germany to serve as part of NATO from 1951 to 1957. Several of the division's battalions participated in the Vietnam War. However, the main division would spend much of the next 35 years at Fort Hood.
The division remained on active service during the Cold War. Its primary mission was to prepare to conduct heavy armored combat against Warsaw Pact forces in defense of NATO. The division formed a key component of the U.S. military's plan to move 'ten divisions in ten days" to Europe in the event of a Soviet threat to NATO. The division practiced this task numerous times during Exercise Reforger from 1967 to 1988. To build and maintain combat skills, the division's maneuver brigades deployed almost annually to the National Training Center to face an opposing force modeling Soviet military weapons and tactics.
However, with the end of the Cold War the U.S. military began to draw down its combat units. The 2nd Armored Division was scheduled to inactivate in the spring of 1990.
Read more about this topic: 2nd Armored Division (United States)
Famous quotes containing the words cold war, cold, war and/or service:
“The Cold War began with the division of Europe. It can only end when Europe is whole.”
—George Bush (b. 1924)
“That cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“[John] Brough’s majority is “glorious to behold.” It is worth a big victory in the field. It is decisive as to the disposition of the people to prosecute the war to the end. My regiment and brigade were both unanimous for Brough [the Union party candidate for governor of Ohio].”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The ability to think straight, some knowledge of the past, some vision of the future, some skill to do useful service, some urge to fit that service into the well-being of the community,—these are the most vital things education must try to produce.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)