The Joint Readiness Training Center is pleased to present the tenth episode to air on ‘The Crucible - The JRTC Experience.’ Hosted by the Commander of Ops Group (COG), COL Matthew Hardman. Today’s guest is a repeat offender on the podcast, the commander of 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, COL Theodore Kleisner. Established during the fierce fighting in the Italian campaigns of World War II, 1/82 was employed in multiple brush wars throughout the Cold War as well as in Operation Desert Storm and later as part of Operation Joint Guardian in Kosovo before deploying in support of the Global War on Terror. They have the Hollywood call-sign of “Devil and the motto of “Strike and Hold.”

In this episode they discuss some of the trends from the Devil Brigade completing two iterations at the Joint Readiness Training Center with the majority of the leadership throughout the entire process. Also discussed are some lessons learned as well as the points of friction that were identified as the Devil Brigade transitioned from planning to execution. One of the major topics of discussion were the various nuances to building an effective joint task force that is capable of conducting an airborne joint forcible entry operation into a heavily contested environment and the challenges of moving all the heavy equipment into the Devils’ newly seized battlespace.

This is the sequel to their episode with COL Kleisner and Team Devil that took place at the end of the Leader Training Program, which is part of the training glide-path for their rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center.

Part of S02 “If I Would Have Only Known” series.

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