82nd Airborne vs 101st Airborne: "Exercise Swiftstrike" ~ 1962 US Army; The Big Picture TV-531

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'Recently ...Exercise Swiftstrike ...a maneuver serving many purposes, was conducted in North and South Carolina. This week's THE BIG PICTURE cameras take you to three fictitious nations created for this particular exercise. In this maneuver the largest airborne operation ever organized in peacetime is undertaken, utilizing the capabilities of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. These two ready forces of the Strike Command are pitted against each other in a realistic test of readiness and striking power. Exercise Swiftstrike offers an excellent opportunity to measure how well a unified command can operate in a dual service effort for our nation's defense.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/82nd_Airborne_Division

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The 82nd Airborne Division is an airborne infantry division of the United States Army, specializing in parachute assault operations into denied areas with a U.S. Department of Defense requirement to "respond to crisis contingencies anywhere in the world within 18 hours". Based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd Airborne Division is part of the XVIII Airborne Corps. The 82nd Airborne Division is the U.S. Army's most strategically mobile division. More recently, the 82nd Airborne has been conducting operations in Iraq, advising and assisting Iraqi Security Forces.

The division was constituted, originally as the 82nd Division, in the National Army on 5 August 1917, shortly after the American entry into World War I. It was organized on 25 August 1917, at Camp Gordon, Georgia and later served with distinction on the Western Front in the final months of World War I. Since its initial members came from all 48 states, the division acquired the nickname All-American, which is the basis for its famed "AA" on the shoulder patch. The division later served in World War II where, in August 1942, it was reconstituted as the first airborne division of the U.S. Army and fought in numerous campaigns during the war...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/101st_Airborne_Division

The 101st Airborne Division ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army specializing in air assault operations. The Screaming Eagles were referred to as "the tip of the spear" by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the most potent and tactically mobile of the U.S. Army's divisions by former Chief of Staff of the Army GEN Edward C. Meyer (ret). The 101st Airborne is able to plan, coordinate, and execute brigade-size air assault operations capable of seizing key terrain in support of operational objectives and is capable of working in austere environments with limited or degraded infrastructure. These operations can be conducted by mobile teams covering large distances and engaging enemy forces behind enemy lines. According to the author of Screaming Eagles: 101st Airborne Division, its unique battlefield mobility and high level of training have kept it in the vanguard of US land combat forces in recent conflicts. More recently, the 101st Airborne has been performing foreign internal defense and counterterrorism operations within Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 101st Airborne Division has a history that is over a century long. During World War II, it was renowned for its role in Operation Overlord (the D-Day landings and airborne landings on 6 June 1944, in Normandy, France), Operation Market Garden, the liberation of the Netherlands and its action during the Battle of the Bulge around the city of Bastogne, Belgium. During the Vietnam War, the 101st Airborne Division fought in several major campaigns and battles, including the Battle of Hamburger Hill in May 1969.

In mid-1968, it was reorganized and redesignated as an airmobile division and then in 1974 as an air assault division. The titles reflect the division's shift from airplanes to helicopters as the primary method of delivering troops into combat. Many current members of the 101st are graduates of the US Army Air Assault School, which is co-located with the division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. It is known as the ten toughest days in the US Army, and its average attrition rate is approximately 50 percent. Division headquarters is at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. In recent years, the division has served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve....