Virginia National Guard

116th IBCT heads to Fort Drum for annual training
June 3, 2015 — The 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team is ready to conduct company-level validation training at the Multi-echelon Integrated Brigade Training exercise at Fort Drum, N.Y., for this year’s annual training... MORE

Soldiers from Danville-based 429th Brigade Support Battalion, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team load equipment onto flatbed trucks to be transported to Fort Drum for annual training.

116th IBCT Soldier earns top spot at Region II Best Warrior Competition
June 1, 2015 — Spc. Adam Sotelo of the Virginia National Guard was named Soldier of the Year at the Region II Best Warrior Competition May 31, 2015, after a three-day competition at Fort Pickett. Va. He is an infantryman from Arlington and assigned to the Winchester-based Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and is currently enrolled in the police academy with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C... MORE

Spc. Adam Sotelo, of the Virginia National Guard’s 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, is announced as the winner of 2015 Region II Best Warrior Competition May 31, 2015, at Fort Pickett, Va. (Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Terra C. Gatti, Virginia National Guard Public Affairs)

Va. Beach-based 529th CSSB completes federal mission in Kuwait, returns to United States
April 30, 2015 — Approximately 70 Soldiers assigned to the Virginia National Guard’s Virginia Beach-based 529th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 329th Regional Support Group returned to the United States April 20, 2015, after serving on federal active duty in Kuwait since July 2014. During the deployment they planned and coordinated combat sustainment support for U.S. and coalition forces in Kuwait and the surrounding region to include Afghanistan and Iraq... MORE

Va. Guard officer candidates hold on to history
April 22, 2015 — FORT PICKETT, Va. — Expecting a lecture filled with monotonous slides and a never-ending list of historic dates and names, the officer candidates of the Virginia Army National Guard’s Officer Candidate School of the Fort Pickett-based 183rd Regiment, Regional Training Institute, walked into Col. Thomas L. Morgan’s military history class April 19, 2015, and quickly discovered that this wasn’t going to be like any other class. The candidates of Class 57 found tables with dozens of museum quality rifles, knives and glass boxes filled with various buttons and uniform insignias. ... MORE

Virginia Army National Guard Officer Candidates hold history in their hands during a military history course April 19, 2015, at the Fort Pickett-based 183rd Regiment, Regional Training Institute. Taught by Col. Thomas L. Morgan III, commander of the 183rd Regional Training Institute, the class included demonstrations on the loading and operating procedures for dozens of Civil-War era rifles and pistols, and displays of Civil War artifacts from the personal collections of Morgan and his father, Thomas L. Morgan Jr. After the classroom portion of the course, the candidates were able to pick and examine the pieces for a closer look. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Miko M. Skerrett, Virginia Guard Public Affairs)

116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team plants trees in honor Civil War Soldiers
April 22, 2015 — The blue and gray patch worn by all Soldiers in the 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team signifies the unity between military units of the North and South combined under one name for World War I – the 29th Infantry Division. The patch served as a reminder to Soldiers that they were once adversaries on the battlefield but are now bonded together to fight as one. The goal for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership’s Living Legacy Tree Planting Project is to honor every Civil War Soldier from the North and South who were killed in battle by planting a tree in their name... MORE

Virginia National Guard Soldiers from the Charlottesville-based Company A, 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team assist with planting 200 Rising Sun Redbud trees to honor fallen Civil War soldiers in support of the Living Legacy Tree Planting Project April 12, 2015, in Locust Dale, Va.

Commonwealth ChalleNGe continues changing lives one cadet at a time with Class 43
April 21, 2015 — Cadets in Class 43 of the Virginia Commonwealth ChalleNGe Youth Academy have completed their two-week acclimation phase and are now focused on the academic portion of the program, with their eyes on graduation Aug. 22... MORE

192nd FW, RAF participate in fighter integration exercise
April 7, 2015 — The 149th Fighter Squadron and 192nd Maintenance Group, 192nd Fighter Wing, Virginia Air National Guard participated in Western Zephyr, a bilateral fighter integration exercise with the United Kingdom hosted by the 94th Fighter Squadron Feb. 23 to March 13, 2015, at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia... MORE

183rd RTI trains military police officers
April 7, 2015 — U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard Soldiers from across the country completed the 31B Basic Military Police Officer course April 4, 2015, after more than 254 hours of training at Fort Pickett’s 183rd Regiment, Regional Training Institute. The MP course included two, two-week phases and allowed 11 Soldiers to earn the 31B Military Police Officer military occupational specialty... MORE

116th IBCT Soldier, NCO earn top honors at Va. Guard Best Warrior competition
March 30, 2015 — Spc. Adam Sotelo was named the 2014 Virginia National Guard Soldier of the Year, and Sgt. John Fracker was named Noncommissioned Officer of the Year March 29, 2015, at Fort Pickett, Va. Sotelo, an Arlington resident assigned to Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, and Fracker, who resides in Boones Mill and is assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment, 116th IBCT, earned the honors after competing in the two-day Best Warrior Competition at Fort Pickett... MORE

192nd and 1st Fighter Wings perform combat training at Red Flag
March 25, 2015 — More than 200 Airmen from the 192nd and 1st Fighter Wing Maintenance and Operations Groups participated in the 40th anniversary of the Red Flag combat training exercise Jan. 26 to Feb. 13, 2015, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada... MORE

116th IBCT artillery Soldiers represent modern military at Jamestown history event
March 23, 2015 — Virginia National Guard field artillery Soldiers explained the capabilities of the M119A2 howitzer, answered questions about the Guard and took part in a demonstration of 400 years of Virginia artillery during the Military Through the Ages event March 21, 2015, at Jamestown Settlement in Williamsburg, Va. Hundreds of re-enactors portrayed military organizations from Roman times, the medieval period, Hundred Years’ War, War of the Roses, French and Indian War, American Revolution, War of 1812 and American Civil War as well as World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War and the Falklands War with Soldiers from the Hampton-based Battery B, 1st Battalion, 111th Field Artillery, 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team representing the modern military... MORE

Virginia National Guard field artillery Soldiers explain the capabilities of the M119A2 howitzer, answer questions about the Guard and take part in a demonstration of 400 years of Virginia artillery during the Military Through the Ages event March 21, 2015, at Jamestown Settlement in Williamsburg, Va.

34th CST shares information, experience during active duty mortuary affairs exercise
March 13, 2015 — Soldiers assigned to the Virginia National Guard’s Fort Pickett-based 34th Civil Support Team supportrd more than 39 Soldiers from the Fort Lee-based 111th Quartermaster Company, 82nd Special Troops Battalion by training mortuary affairs personnel on the use of chemical detection equipment during the Joint Mortuary Affairs Centers’ Quick Reaction Test field training exercise of March 12, 2015, at Fort Lee, Va... MORE

Soldiers assigned to the Virginia National Guard’s Fort Pickett-based 34th Civil Support Team support the Fort Lee-based 111th Quartermaster Company, 530th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion by training mortuary affairs Soldiers on the use of chemical detection equipment during the Joint Mortuary Affairs Centers’ Quick Reaction Test field training exercise of March 12, 2015, at Fort Lee, Va.

Va. Guard remembers Airmen, Soldiers on 14th anniversary of 203rd RHS crash
March 3, 2015 — CAMP PENDLETON, Va. — The Virginia Air National Guard’s 203rd RED HORSE Squadron conducted a ceremony March 3, 2015, at Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach to remember the 21 Airmen and Soldiers killed in the worst peacetime aviation disaster in the history of the National Guard. The 203rd lost 18 Airmen March 3, 2001, when the C-23 Sherpa they were flying in crashed in a cotton field near Unadilla, Ga. In addition to the Air Guard engineers, three aviators from the Florida Army National Guard’s Detachment 1, 171st Aviation Battalion, were killed in the crash... MORE

34th CST Soldiers take part in nuclear power plant exercise
February 14, 2015 — Soldiers from the Fort Pickett-based 34th Civil Support Team took part in a full-scale exercise conducted by Dominion Virginia Power and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management at the Surry Power Station Feb. 10, 2015, to test preparedness and response procedures involving plant security. The Virginia Guard Soldiers augmented field teams from the Virginia Department of Health simulating collecting air samples in Chester, Va... MORE

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