JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska – U.S. Army Alaska will host an inactivation ceremony for the 2nd Engineer Brigade on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson’s Pershing Field, at 1 p.m. Friday, May 15.

The brigade is inactivating as part of the U.S. Army’s downsizing efforts to restructure into a leaner, more adaptable fighting force.

This will be the fourth time that 2nd Engineer Brigade has inactivated since World War II. Known then as the 2nd Engineer Special Brigade, their area of expertise was operating military landing craft to deliver troops and equipment to 25 islands and archipelagos, from Australia all the way to Japan. The unit was recognized by top commanders for participating in 82 combat landings, giving them more combat operations than any other American unit in the Pacific Theater.

Jack Reed served in 2nd Engineer Special Brigade during World War II and will be attending Friday’s inactivation ceremony. Please see the article linked here (https://www.dvidshub.net/news/78677/2nd-engineer-brigades-past-meets-present) for an Army story about Reed’s participation in the 2nd Engineer Brigade’s activation in Alaska in 2011.

The 2nd Engineer Special Brigade served again in the Pacific during the Korean War. They trained at the port of Pusan, delivered Marines into combat at the invasion of Inchon and operated the port at Hungnam. That is where the brigade managed facilities, operated a prisoner of war camp and controlled the movement of X Corps and 50,000 refugees out of North Korea during the greatest evacuation by sea in U.S. military history.

No longer amphibian engineers, in the 21st century 2nd Engineer Brigade served as technical experts charged with managing the readiness and deployments of diverse modular units across a wide spectrum of functions, specialties and technical skills.

Unlike the Army’s brigade combat teams, every echelon of command in 2nd Engineer Brigade was designed to deploy separate from their organic command and serve in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Guam. This resulted in 29 separate and overlapping deployments for 2nd Engineer Brigade units between 2011 and 2015.

The 2nd Engineer Brigade headquarters returned December from deployment to Afghanistan where they served as the headquarters of ISAF’s Theater Engineer Brigade. Their largest responsibility while deployed was to manage the construction and deconstruction necessary to prepare ISAF bases for closure, downsizing or transfer to the Afghans as America reduced its military commitment to the region.

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