{"id":44720,"date":"2018-12-12T19:22:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T19:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/12\/12\/armored-unit-returns-from-korea-deployment-will-be-first-to-field-the-new-joint-light-tactical-vehicle\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T03:35:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T03:35:28","slug":"armored-unit-returns-from-korea-deployment-will-be-first-to-field-the-new-joint-light-tactical-vehicle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/your-army\/2018\/12\/12\/armored-unit-returns-from-korea-deployment-will-be-first-to-field-the-new-joint-light-tactical-vehicle\/","title":{"rendered":"Armored unit returns from Korea deployment, will be first to field the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An armored brigade combat team that recently returned from a nine-month rotation<\/a> in South Korea<\/a> left the United States without tanks or Bradleys but brought home the vehicles they used on deployment, part of a larger effort to build more armored brigades and increase rotational force readiness across the Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldiers with 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division of Fort Stewart, Georgia, arrived in South Korea<\/a> in February, and the last elements arrived home in late October. They were the fifth rotational BCT to deploy to the peninsula since the Army moved from a permanently forward-stationed brigade to the rotations in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Col. Mike Adams, the brigade commander, sat down with Army Times on Wednesday to discuss the recent deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the unit prepared for its deployment, the Army was building up its ABCTs, and at Fort Stewart that meant shifting the 3rd Infantry Division\u2019s 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team into an armored BCT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To accomplish that, Adams’ brigade left behind its tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles and fell in on the Korean Enduring Equipment Set, or KEES, when they arrived in country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when they left nine months later, they didn\u2019t get to pack light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tankers from B Co, 3rd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division train during a company FTX at DAGMAR North Training Area, Republic of Korea. (Army)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Army decided to pull back the KEES vehicles, which had been deployed in Korea since around 2011, to Fort Stewart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new rotational movements will include ABCTs taking their vehicles with them, moving them by rail for shipping from major ports such as Oakland, California, to South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how the replacement unit, 3rd ABCT, 1st Armored Division, out of Fort Bliss, Texas, began its deployment in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Adams\u2019 brigade will get another vehicle change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beginning in January, it will be the first Army unit to fully field the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, the nearly across-the-board replacement for the Humvee.<\/p>\n\n\n\t