Griffin Brigade uncases colors in Germany

News: Griffin Brigade uncases colors in Germany

12th Combat Aviation Brigade

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Story by Spc. Ondirae Abdullah-Robinson Subscribe To This Journalist

Spc. Ondirae Abdullah-Robinson

The colors of the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, The United States and Germany during a brigade colors uncasing ceremony held at hanger two here.

KATTERBACH, Germany – The Headquarters 12th Combat Aviation Brigade uncased its colors at its home station of Katterbach, Germany Monday Oct. 15.

Soldiers from the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade held a ceremony Monday at hanger two here on Katterbach Kaserne during which the brigade’s colors were officially uncased.

The colors were cased April 20 and deployed to Afghanistan with the soldiers of the brigade’s headquarters.

“It has been a very interesting six months since we stood out on the tarmac in front of the headquarters last April and cased all of our units’ colors prior to deployment,” said Col. Jay Voorhees, the commander of the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade.

Voorhees also thanked the soldiers who were part of the rear-detachment for their hard work maintaining operations here and supporting the operations in Afghanistan.

The ceremony began with the national anthem of Germany and the United States, followed by the invocation by Chaplain Mark Levine. Next the brigade commander, Col. Jay Voorhees, and the brigade command sergeant major, Command Sgt. Maj. Micheal J. Clowser uncased the colors. Voorhees delivered remarks.

The color guard consisted of two U.S. Army riflemen with M-16A2’s and two color bearers bearing The National Colors and the brigade colors, and a color bearer from the Bundeswehr (Germany’s Federal Defense Force) bearing the German national colors.

While deployed, the 12th CAB conducted a wide variety of aviation missions including joint operations with NATO partners. The brigade provided close air support, transportation of troops and cargo, and Aero-medical evacuation support to U.S., German, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Lithuanian, Spanish, and Italian forces. In Regional Command North alone, the brigade transported more than 10,000 personnel and 688 tons of cargo between over 30 different bases.

“As we uncase our colors back here, our mission in Afghanistan is not complete,” said Voorhees. “It will only be complete when every single Griffin soldier is redeployed next spring.”

Historically the colors act as a rallying point for troops and mark the location of the unit commander.

Some information in this story was gathered from a previous news release, “Griffin Brigade realigns with drawdown of forces in Afghanistan,” by Capt. Michael J. Barranti, the brigade’s public affairs officer.