185th Aviation Regiment 'Takes Off'
for Kosovo In First Deployment

July 18, 2006, Winder, GA -- Less than a year after its organization, Georgia’s newest helicopter unit "took off” on its first deployment. The mission is to support the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) in southern Serbia of the former Yugoslavia.

A send-off ceremony for Detachment 1, Company C, 1st Battalion, 185th Aviation Regiment, was held July 18, at the Georgia Army National Guard’s Army Air Facility No. 1 at Winder’s municipal airport.

Among those invited to see the detachment off were Lt. General David B. Poythress, Georgia’s Adjutant General; Maj. General Terry Nesbitt, commander Georgia Army Guard and Georgia Homeland Security director; and Col. Maria Britt, Georgia Army Guard chief of staff. Winder city and Barrow County officials also have been invited to attend.

Georgia Army National Guard wife Julie Reed of Smyrna is caught up in a tender moment with her husband of one and a half years Spc. Richard Reed shortly before he and other Soldiers of Winder’s Detachment 1, Company C, 185th Aviation Regiment, leave for Fort Knox, Ky., and the first leg of their journey to a yearlong deployment to Kosovo in the Balkans. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry)

Detachment flight crews and maintenance personnel were deployed under the direction of 1st Lt. Austin Allen. He and the unit, with its five new UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, are part of Task Force Eagle in Kosovo. They are attached to the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 147th Aviation Regiment.

Detachment 1, which received its mobilization orders on July 9, and the 147th replace Michigan’s 3rd Battalion, 238th Aviation Regiment, which was part of Task Force Talon and KFOR7. The mission is to provide aviation support to elements of Virginia’s 29th Infantry Division, which is now in Kosovo.

Before heading overseas, Allen and his Soldiers will spend two and a half months at Kentucky’s Fort Knox having their flight, maintenance and warfighter skills validated. From there, they travel to Hoenfels, Germany, where the detachment will participate in a “mission rehearsal exercise” before moving in November to Kosovo and Camp Bond Steel.

Georgia’s Detachment 1, Company C, stood up in October 2005, and received its first UH-60 in July of that year. The other four arrived at Air Facility No. 1 earlier this month, according to Maj. Wayne Wilson, the facility manager.

The 185th Aviation Regiment is headquartered in Arkansas, Wilson said.

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Families of Soldiers with Winder’s Detachment 1, Company C, 185th Aviation Regiment, say their final goodbyes as two of the unit’s UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters leave Winder-Barrow Airport for Fort Knox, Ky., and the first leg of their yearlong deployment to Kosovo. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry)

Four-year-old Kylie Sutherland, daughter of Georgia Army National Guard sergeant and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crew chief Jeremiah Sutherland does all she can to keep from crying as she, her father, her 12-year-old brother Tyler (right) and their mother, Stacy (not pictured) attend the formal send off of Soldiers of Winder’s Detachment 1, Company C, 185th Aviation Regiment, leave for Fort Knox, Ky., and the first leg of their journey to a yearlong deployment to Kosovo in the Balkans. (Georgia National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Roy Henry)