The US Department of Defense on Tuesday released an image showing a lone soldier boarding an aircraft at the Kabul airport. The soldier was major general Chris Donahue, the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army.
His departure marked the formal end of the US military involvement in Afghanistan, which began after the invasion in October 2001, which was in response to the September 11 attacks.
The 82nd Airborne Division is among the US Army's most storied units. Constituted in 1917, the 82nd Airborne Division is capable of deploying to conflict zones within 18 hours and seizing territory using parachute assaults. The 82nd Airborne Division is specialised in the seizure of airfields, one of the reasons why the unit was handed control of security of Kabul airport.
The 82nd Airborne Division has participated in nearly all US conflicts since the 2nd World War, including the US interventions in Vietnam, Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), liberation of Kuwait and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions.
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The 82nd Airborne Division was first deployed to Afghanistan in June 2002 to replace the 101st Airborne Division.
The 82nd Airborne Division is also the spearhead of the US military's Immediate Response Force, which made its first emergency deployment in January 2020.
The Immediate Response Force, according to the US Army, is built around a brigade combat team of the 82nd Airborne Division. A rotating battalion of the brigade, along with the Air Force Air Mobility Command assets, is kept at a high-alert level to allow it to undertake an airborne deployment on 18-hours notice with no prior warning. The IRF has over 4,000 soldiers and equipment that can undertake airfield seizure and support aerial and land operations.
Chris Donahue
Donahue was commissioned into the US Army as a second lieutenant in 1992. Donahue was a US Army War College fellow at Harvard University and has deployed 17 times in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, North Africa and Eastern Europe.
