FURY Family and Friends,

Its time to put our training to the test, we’ll “Get After It!” for a month long rotation to Fort Irwin, Calif. also known as “NTC”. COL Mennes, the Brigade Commander, is excited to lead our great Paratroopers to NTC for our month-long rotation. In a recent letter from Fury 6, the Brigade had a training goal of “getting back to the basics” over the course of the summer leading up to this rotation. We’ve been very busy ensuring we have the best trained Leaders and best trained Paratroopers that do the best we can with what we are given. We have to precisely train our team, which is the absolute best thing we can do to care for them.

The National Training Center is a training program that provides the most realistic training scenario of Afghanistan that we have in the U.S. Our current rotational dates are 2 – 29 Sept. It has been the goal of the Brigade Staff and the Battalion Commanders to prepare each Paratrooper for their mission in Afghanistan, this is the final phase.

What’s most important for you, as FURY Family and Friends, to know is during the middle of our rotation, approximately 10-24 Sep, we will not have communication with our families. It is a policy and in direct support of the NTC training objective to be as realistic as possible, that we not have personal devices. We understand that emergencies and unforeseen circumstances happen, that is why the Brigade has a staffed Rear-D section, FRSA and further in this message you can find ways to get information from, or to us during this time.

I’d also like to share with you what we know about our upcoming deployment to Southern Afghanistan. As you know the Department of Defense released a message in August that changes the deployment period for Division and below-level units to 9 months. This affects units deploying to Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Noble Guardian in Kosovo and Multinational Forces Sinai in Egypt. What we know is we will arrive in Southern Afghanistan in Spring 2012 for an expected 9-month rotation. What that means for our families is that with the shortened deployment we will not receive any environmental leave, that’s part of the DOD policy. The emergency and special circumstance leave policy is still in review at this time. The change in DOD policy is to integrate our forces with meeting our operational commitments and allowing more time at home with our families upon redeployment.

The FURY Brigade knows much of our successes are directly from family support during training phases. Our leaders want to thank you for your continued support and tireless commitment to FURY Paratroopers. We would not be as successful as we are without you. We ask that you remain patient and supportive of our efforts as we prepare for our mission in Southern Afghanistan. My staff is committed to providing you with as much information as quickly as possible as it relates to the FURY Brigade.

You can reach us via Facebook, our webpage, or Gmail account. Additionally, there is a new “Fury 6 Blog” on our webpage, check it out. Get After It!

ALL THE WAY! FURY FROM THE SKY!!!

Brigade FRSA: Cheryl Blankenship, cherly.blankenship1@conus.army.mil 910.396.8123/910.432.6874/910.305.9690c

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