Freakley Assumes Command of 10th Mountain Division
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FORT DRUM, N.Y. – With a passing of the colors and booming cannons, Major General Benjamin Freakley assumed command yesterday of the Army’s heralded 10th Mountain Division.
The change in leadership – which came during an hour-long ceremony as some 2,500 troops and spectators looked on – comes at a critical time for the fast-growing division that has been the military’s most deployed since being reactivated 20 years ago.
Some 3,000 Fort Drum troops from the Division’s 1st Brigade left for Iraq earlier this month, and next year, about 8,000 Fort Drum soldiers from the Third, Fourth, and aviation brigades will go to Afghanistan, including General Freakley.
“It’s a very serious path we have to undertake, but 30 years of army training should count for something,” said General Freakley, who previously served as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Infantry Center and commandant of the U.S. Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, Ga.
General Freakley replaces his 1975 West Point classmate Major General Lloyd J. Austin III.
During General Austin’s two-year command, the division nearly doubled in size to almost 19,000 from 10,000 troops with the addition of two brigades – one of which is located at Fort Polk in Louisiana.
