JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – Joint Base Lewis-McChord will formally welcome home the Soldiers of the 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade during a Redeployment Ceremony on Wednesday, October 20, at 10 a.m. on Watkins Field. About 1,000 Soldiers from the 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade deployed to Iraq from September 2009 to September 2010. During the ceremony the brigade will uncase its colors, signifying the completion of its deployment and its return to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
While deployed, the brigade conducted intelligence collection, surveillance, counter-intelligence, and reconnaissance in support of U.S. Forces Iraq and Iraqi security partners, providing more than 80 intelligence-collection teams to assist U.S. and Iraqi forces in identifying criminal activities, seizing weapons caches, and reducing violence throughout Iraq.
Other elements from the brigade provided intelligence assessments and analysis for Multi-National Forces Iraq and U.S. Forces Iraq, trained more Iraqi border patrol officers in surveillance, reconnaissance, and small-unit tactics, participated in more than 75 joint U.S.-Iraq reconnaissance missions along the Iraq-Iran border, provided secure network-based communication and information sharing capabilities in support of intelligence collection and analysis efforts, and provided additional logistics support for U.S. forces.