The 1st Armored Division is the oldest and most prestigious armored division in the United States Army. From its desert tank battles against Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, beach landing at Anzio to the end of the war in the Italian Alps. Maintaining a forward presence in the Cold War in Germany, its stunning victories in the Persian Gulf War to the Global War on Terrorism in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. In peace or war, the "Old Ironsides" Division has amassed a proud record of service to America. The current home of the Division is at Fort Bliss, Texas.
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The division's 1st Brigade Combat Team ("Ready First") under the command of Colonel Sean B. MacFarland deployed again to Iraq in January 2006 after months of intensive training in Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels, Germany. Many of the soldiers who fought with units like 1?36 Infantry("Spartans"), 2?37 Armor("Iron Dukes"), and 1?37 ("Bandits") during the invasion of Iraq returned to Iraq for a second time. The majority of the Ready First Brigade was initially deployed to Northern Iraq in Nineveh province concentrating on the city of Tal' Afar. In May 2006, the main force of 1st Brigade received orders to move south to the city of Ramadi in volatile Al Anbar Province. Downtown Ramadi in 2006
Since 2003, Al Anbar served as a microcosm of a war effort gone awry, a human laboratory of failure, violence, and extremism. The province served as a base of operations for the Sunni rejectionist insurgency and al Qaeda. Ramadi, it?s capital, had neither a government nor a police force when the Ready First arrived. Most military strategists inside and outside of the Bush administration believed that the war in Anbar had already concluded unsuccessfully prior to the arrival of the ?Ready First,? that the province and its population were hopelessly lost. They had every reason to think so. Al Qaeda in Iraq publicly announced Ramadi as now the capital of their new caliphate, the city alone averaged more than twenty attacks per days, the province was statistically the most dangerous location in the country, and the insurgency enjoyed free rein throughout much of the province.
