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New 82nd Airborne Division commander takes over

FORT BRAGG, N.C. — A general who started his Army career in the famed 82nd Airborne Division said Wednesday as he took command of its 22,000 soldiers that the division’s future is in the Middle East: “The war on terrorism is far from over.”

Maj. Gen. Curtis M. ‘Mike’ Scaparrotti, 52, reviewed between 8,000 and 9,000 soldiers massed on a parade field after he assumed the commander’s post by accepting the division flag at Fort Bragg. The Logan, Ohio, native said the division has grown from 15,000 soldiers since he was a brigade commander, and remains made up of “the most lethal paratroopers in the world.”

“For the foreseeable future our business is getting them ready to go to the Middle East and be ready for anything unexpected,” Scaparrotti said in an interview after the ceremony.

Retired Michigan corrections employee John Sterzick of Lowell, Mich., attended the ceremony with his daughter, who is engaged to a lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne. “It gives me chills to look at them and feel we’ve got this kind of protection and dedication for our country,” he said.

About 8,000 paratroopers from the 82nd’s 1st and 4th brigades are scheduled to deploy to Iraq next year. The division’s 3rd Brigade will leave for Iraq in November. Its leadership is focused on training and equipping the units and “looking after the troopers and looking after the families,” Scaparrotti said.

Scaparrotti came to his new job from the U.S. Central Command, where he was director of operations. He began his career 25 years ago as a rifle platoon leader in the 3rd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment. He commanded the regiment from June 1999 to June 2001 and was commandant of cadets at West Point from 2004 to 2006.

He called Fort Bragg “the center of the universe” for military operations and said 82nd paratroopers “have a reputation for toughness and audacity in combat.”

The division’s former commander, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, left in July to become senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He spent 15 months of his two-year tour as the division’s commander in Afghanistan.

Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps and chief of ground forces in Iraq, attended the ceremony to hand the command to Scaparrotti. Austin said the division has been so busy on deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that the entire division has been at its home base for only two months in the past two years.

Retired Sgt. Maj. Mark Bergman attended the ceremony wearing the caps and pins of his Veterans of Foreign Wars post that represents three counties near Fort Bragg. Bergman said he had served in the 82nd three times.

“Once you’re an 82nd Airborne soldier, you’re always an 82nd Airborne soldier,” he said.

Other North Carolina-based troops also are involved in the brisk pace of deployments. About 15,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune are deployed and others are preparing to go to Iraq next year.