Fort Carson soldiers load equipment for Europe deployment

Fort Carson soldiers are one step closer to deploying to Europe for their largest mission in decades.

Tuesday, soldiers loaded nearly 3,000 items such as Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles onto rail cars. This is in preparation for Operation Atlantic Resolve in Europe.

All of the equipment will be sent to a port in Texas and eventually to nine different counties in Europe.

“The biggest challenge is really making sure that we have everybody accountable. There’s a lot of pieces that go into this, a lot of units making sure they do their portion of it. Doing inspections and making sure the paperwork portion is on time and making sure we get the soldiers on board,” said Kenneth Kloeppel, with the 66th Armor Regiment.

The Iron Brigade is the U.S. Army’s first armored brigade combat team to serve nine-month, “heel-to-toe” rotations as part of Atlantic Resolve. It is the first ABCT to ship its full set of heavy equipment to Europe from the U.S. since the 1980s.

“We’ll have units in the Baltic states, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Romania, units in Hungary and Poland as well,” said Col. John Gilliam, with the 3rd Armored Brigade combat team.

The equipment will arrive in January to the port of Bremerhaven, Germany, where the brigade’s more than 4,000 soldiers will then move the equipment to integration sites.