82nd Airborne Division

The 82nd Airborne Division ("All American") is a United States Army airborne infantry division that specializes in parachute assault, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Currently, the division is commanded by Major General Brandon Tegtmeier.

It was first activated at Camp Gordon, in Georgia in August 1917. The 82nd Infantry Division was the second United States Army infantry-combat division of eight to deploy and return in England, and fight in France.

The 82nd Infantry Division served with distinction on the Western Front in the final months of World War I. Since its initial members came from all 48 states, the division acquired the nickname All-American, which is the basis for its "AA" (pictured), on the shoulder patch. The Division took part in the Battle of Lorraine 1918, and the campaigns of St. Mihieland Meuse-Argonne 1918. It was demobilized in May 1919, at Camp Mills, New York. During the summer of 1921, it was reconstituted, placed into the Organized Reserves, as Headquarters, 82nd Division, and was later transferred to the Federal Building at Columbia, South Carolina.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on 7 December 1941, the 82nd Airborne Division saw combat with the command of United States ArmyGeneral Omar Bradley. In August 1942, Bradley reconstituted the 82nd as the first airborne division of the US Army, and it fought in numerous campaigns of the war.