WATCH: Ceremony For JBLM Soldiers Deploying To Afghanistan

LAKEWOOD, WA — The 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade held a casing and deployment ceremony on Wednesday at Watkins Field at Joint Base-Lewis McChord. The unit is headed to Afghanistan in September to train that country's military as part of Operation Resolute Support.

You can see the full ceremony here: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/705506/201st-mi-brigade-deployment-ceremony

Here's more on the ceremony from a JBLM press release:

The 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade, held a casing ceremony August 28 at Watkins Field in preparation for the upcoming deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Resolute Support.

For the next nine months the Gryphon Brigade’s soldiers are expected to lead intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations across Afghanistan in support of United States, coalition and Afghan forces.

“We were notified in March that we would deploy to Afghanistan in September. That is six
short months to prepare soldiers for a geographically dispersed deployment while supporting decentralized units,” said Col. Blue Huber, 201st EMIB commander. “These soldiers trained using dynamic and realistic training that will prove invaluable while conducting combat operations in Afghanistan.”

Huber expressed gratitude for the “dedication and professionalism” of the I Corps and JBLM garrison organizations that enabled the 201st EMIB’s rapid preparation for deployment.
The soldiers of the 201st are looking forward to writing the next chapter of the Gryphon
Brigade while earning their place in its history.

The 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade provides deployable all-source
intelligence analysis, human intelligence, signals intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance,
target acquisition, battle damage assessment, command and control warfare, and broad
bandwidth communications support to I Corps.]