CITE SOLEIL, Haiti -- The 82nd Airborne Division got its job back. The Fort Bragg-based outfit is once again the military's Global Response Force, and its deployment to Haiti's earthquake recovery is the first test of the resurrected unit.
The paratroopers proudly claimed that role for decades, under names such as the "division ready brigade," a status that bolstered the airborne moniker: "You call, we fall."
Two weeks ago, they had just finished 10 days of outdoor field training in sub-freezing temperatures when they got the call to deploy to a tropical climate.
The rapid reaction mission was stripped away in 2007 as the Pentagon stretched its forces to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All four of the 82nd's brigades were in those countries that year. The rapid response duty shifted to the Kentucky-based 101st Airborne Division, helicopter-ferried troops with whom the 82nd, the Army's only all-paratrooper division, holds a healthy rivalry.
Last summer, with a drawdown of forces in Iraq, the second of the 82nd's four brigades was handed back the duty of global "go" team. It was somewhat walled off from deployment to the Middle East, though the unit could still be sent there.
Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, the deputy commander at Miami-based Southern Command and now commander of the Haiti joint task force, was in the country the night of the earthquake, preparing for a diplomatic reception at the embassy the next day. The morning after the quake, he toured parts of Port-au-Prince.
"All I heard was, 'When is America coming?'" he said during an interview at a forward operating base for units from the 82nd. "It was very comforting to be able to say, 'Help is on the way.'"
The global response designation carries as much romance as reality. The brigade is ready to begin deployment within 18 hours, and there is a sense of pride in the first responder status.
But the full deployment to Haiti dragged on for days. Four days after the initial units flew out of Fort Bragg, planeloads of troops were still arriving from the 3,600-member unit, and equipment such as generators was days further behind.
The 82nd's units have rarely been called out for the global response mission, but their availability means the Pentagon has a unit trained to drop in, seize an airfield and establish an entry point for other forces, if needed.
It is a designation that comes with bragging rights.
"After I got the call [to deploy], the first thing my wife did was tell me she was proud of me," said Sgt. Jeffery Gary of Newport News, Va. "That's why you see me walking around with my video camera. Because at some point in my kids' life, they're going to read about this earthquake, and I can show them I was there and how we helped."
Capt. Andy Salmo, an infantry commander with the brigade in Haiti, described the global response duty as a mixed bag.
"It's a love/hate relationship," Salmo said. "They see they're making a difference, and they like that. At the same time, your job as an infantryman is to fight somebody."
Soldiers see their brothers and sisters from other brigades heading off to combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, where the United States has been waging war for most of a dec ade. But a large number of 82nd Airborne paratroopers will record their first deployment in a small island nation where, at times, they stowed their weapons and handed out food to starving people.
