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On 15 September 1997, after a 19-hour flight from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 620 members of the 82d Airborne Division parachuted into Shymkent, Kazakhstan. Genghis Khan would have been impressed. En route to the drop zone the C-17s might have passed over American soldiers on the ground in Senegal or Uganda or Bosnia or Macedonia. While this military exercise involving armies of the former Soviet Union received some notice in the press, there was little expressed amazement. The American people took it for granted that our armed forces were up to the task.
Fighting forest fires in Colorado, operating medical clinics in Latin America, retrieving Soviet nuclear weapons, policing Haiti or Bosnia, keeping the North Koreans at bay-all seem equally unremarkable. Effectiveness with Hurricane Andrew recovery, with flood relief in Bangladesh, and with the Saudi National Guard was not unexpected. Even in the midst of headlines in 1997 describing appalling behavior on the part of cadre at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, opinion polls continued to show strong support for the American military. Perhaps most remarkably, heroic actions of soldiers from Panama to the Gulf to Mogadishu confirmed that the tradition of courage under fire has not been lost.
Adventures in peacekeeping, warfighting training, drug interdiction, Olympic Games protection, and technological adaptation took place amid a force reduction of monumental proportions. In a drawdown of more than one-third strength in five years, with massive personnel turbulence, a notoriously high pace of activities, and an austere operating budget, admirable pride prevailed. In 1996, Army operational deployments averaged 35,000 soldiers per day among 70 countries. Many soldiers stationed in the United States spent more than 130 days away from home station that year. Much of the warrior spirit has somehow survived the influx from a supposedly self-centered generation. West Point cadets still compete for assignments in the combat arms.1 "Exciting but demanding times," some soldiers have said. Our most robust corporations might-just might-have withstood the trauma to which the Army has responded so well in the 1990s. Performance of assigned, tangible missions in the last decade represents one of the finest examples of institutional stamina, commitment, and versatility in military history.
The Army also has been working diligently, in conjunction with the other military services, to anticipate and...