101st Airborne stops in Tallulah during island-hopping simulation

TALLULAH, La. (VDN) — The 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with support by the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina made a brief stop at the Tallulah-Vicksburg Airport this week as part of an expansive military training exercise.

According to Brigadier General Travis McIntosh, Deputy Commander(Support) 101st Airborne Division(Air Assault), the training campaign is a simulation of archipelago island-hopping culminating into a multi week combat exercise at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, where the 101st will engage with “enemy combatants” played by troops at Ft. Johnson.

As part of the training exercise, several locations along the 500 mile route including the Tallulah-Vicksburg Airport, operated as logistical and tactical staging locations for refueling, rearming, and resupplying for the 40 to 50 helicopters used for the mission.

“What is unique about this mission is we have elements of the 101st Airborne Division’s helicopter aviation brigade. We also are working with the 82nd Airborne Division and their aviation brigade and the Indiana Army National Guard with a handful of their Chinooks,” McIntosh said. “So we are really pulling together quite a team to support this while our aviation brigade is mostly deployed.”

Currently, part of the 101st Airborne Division is deployed supporting Central Command in the Middle East.

The modern military operations are now “leaner and more lethal” according to McIntosh.

One of the newer additions to the vehicular arsenal are the M1301 Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV), built off of the chassis of the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. The lightweight infantry vehicle is capable of carrying nine soldiers. Two ISVs can be staged inside of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter, rear-facing, with soldiers riding in the vehicle. One of the first uses of the M1301 by the 101st was to provide aid to Hurricane Helene victims in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in October 2024.

Soldiers from the 101st were able to take some time out of their busy schedule to go pay homage to “Old Abe” that sits atop the Wisconsin Monument in the Vicksburg National Military Park.

“We had a few minutes and we drove out a few of our soldiers to introduce the original Screaming Eagles with the current Screaming Eagles,” McIntosh said. “I want to thank Brendan [Wilson] at the park service. He really did a great job.”

McIntosh was also grateful for the community that “embraced our presence and tolerated the additional noise.”

“I can’t thank enough the community that has embraced our presence and and tolerated the additional noise,” said McIntosh. “The people that we’ve interacted with, the citizens of this community, and the Heritage Foundation folks that came out yesterday, I just wanted to make sure that we express our tremendous gratitude for their hospitality while we’re passing through. Hopefully they’ll let us do it again sometime.”

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Editor’s note – This article was updated with a corrected title and new information.