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Chattanooga losing Guard brigade

By: Lauren Gregory
(Contact)

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Randy Harris

The Tennessee National Guard is meeting the needs of an evolving wartime Army by doing some shape-shifting of its own.

Though it once was known for having some of the most expansive and sophisticated artillery capabilities in the nation, the Tennessee Guard no longer is needed for direct combat as much as it is for logistical combat support, according to Col. Gregg Cunningham, commander of the Guard’s Chattanooga-based 196th Field Artillery Brigade.

“It’s a significant pendulum shift,” said Col. Cunningham, whose unit will “retire its colors” on Sunday and then exist only on paper until officially dissolving Sept. 1.

After that, Col. Cunningham said, the Tennessee National Guard no longer will have any field artillery brigades and instead will focus on providing support services such as supply management.

The 196th’s 1/181st Field Artillery Battalion will remain at the Chattanooga National Armory under the command of the 230th Sustainment Brigade, Col. Cunningham said, but most of the former 196th soldiers will be absorbed into new positions and no longer will be able to showcase their nationally recognized weapons capabilities.

“We had been artillery for a really long time,” the colonel said. “It just goes way back, and that’s just what we had always done.”

The 196th was organized in 1940 and has served in World War II and the Korean War, said Guard spokesman Randy Harris, and it was one of only two brigade-level National Guard units deployed during Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

The unit last was deployed in 2005 for a 12-month tour in Afghanistan to train the Afghan Army.

At its height a few years ago, it was the largest field artillery brigade in all of the Army and National Guard with close to 2,500 members, Col. Cunningham said. In 2006, the brigade was the first in the nation to receive the Army’s most advanced artillery rocket system, he said.

It had been the headquarters brigade in Chattanooga until 2005, when the 230th was created to take over and gradually absorb its members as part of an overall Army reorganization.

“The Army as a whole over the last few years has transformed into a lighter, more mobile organization,” Mr. Harris said. “To do that, some of the units have changed in the National Guard as well as the regular Army. The loss of the 196th was part of that.”

Sgt. Maj. Larry Bull, who works at the Chattanooga Armory as an operations manager for the 1/181st, said he was sad to have to transition from the 196th to the 230th Sustainment Brigade.

“I think it hurt the field artillery community to lose such a great brigade,” he said. “They did have a great reputation, and no one saw it coming.”

Fortunately, Mr. Harris said, the reorganization better will distribute units throughout the state so that any future deployments will not take too many soldiers from any one part of Tennessee.

It also will open doors for recruiters, he noted.

“There were some areas of Tennessee where we couldn’t recruit females, because females cannot hold direct combat positions,” Mr. Harris said. “With the (new combat support positions), that gives us a little more flexibility to hire females, and that’s a big thing.”

The 196th’s color retirement ceremony is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. Sunday at the National Guard Armory at 1801 Holtzclaw Ave. in Chattanooga.

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