President's Welcome
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I am honored to have been re-elected as president of the National 4th Infantry Division Association. It’s hard to believe that it has been 11 years since 1998-2000 when I served my first term as president.
During my first term, we were an organization with lots of WWII vets, and an ever growing number of Vietnam vets who were finding us and realizing how the 4IDA is a great link to their buddies of the past. We also had a limited number of Cold War veterans. Since the division’s return from Vietnam in 1970, they had been relegated to something of a secondary role in the Army, causing us to gain little attention from those veterans as they left the Army or moved to different units.
That all changed in 1995 when the 4ID was moved to Fort Hood and chosen to be the spearhead of the Army’s modernization role for the 21st Century, called Force XXI.
Much has changed with the 4ID in the past 11 years. As the Army’s experimental division in Force XXI, the 4ID evolved to become the world’s most lethal Army division by the time the Global War on Terror became the Army’s total focus through the first decade of the 21st century. We were chosen as the division to take control of Saddam Hussein’s home town when Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003. Since that initial deployment, our division served with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and continue to serve in both countries today.
We have thousands of new veterans of the 4ID who can benefit greatly from becoming members of the 4th Infantry Division Association. Consequently, my primary focus during my term as president will be to attract the Global War on Terror veterans into our association. These great Soldiers and veterans are our future, now is the time to welcome them into our ranks. I encourage all who read this to contact me, or go to our web page at www.4thinfantry.org and join our association. We need you – and you need us.
Steadfast and Loyal,
Bob Babcock, President
B/1-22 IN, Vietnam, 1966-1967