Marne 6 Sends
MG Chris Norrie
Honorary President
Greetings to all Dogface Soldiers and friends of the Marne Division!
I want to start by saying, it’s great to be home at Fort Stewart and the Coastal Georgia community. Soldiers have continued to redeploy over the past couple months to reconnect with Families and friends after a nine-month rotation in Eastern Europe. The division held its Transfer of Authority (TOA) ceremony with 1st Cavalry Division on May 11 in Boleslawiec, Poland followed by an uncasing ceremony of our colors at Fort Stewart on May 16, signifying the end of a successful mission and highlighting the return of our division.
These past months’ mission in Europe has been to train alongside our Allies and partners to present a credible, interoperable force, capable of countering any adversary. Dogface Soldiers are ready, trained and equipped to accomplish any mission we are presented with anywhere in the world, at any time. It has been an incredible opportunity to build our readiness, train in a realistic environment and build lasting partnerships and memories with allied forces.
Task Force Marne left the theater after participating in over 28 exercises across Europe ranging from large multinational training events like Austere Challenge 24, Allied Spirit 24, Polish Dragon 24, and Dynamic Front 24 to command post exercises, professional military summits, community engagements, and independence and military celebrations with NATO allies and partners. We enhanced our lethality by qualifying 92% of all assigned Soldiers on individual weapons and certified 90% of all crews, platoons, companies, and battalions on multiple weapons platforms, and participated in the first Corps-level Warfighter exercise since 2020.
The first order of business for the division is to deliberately reintegrate and spend time reconnecting with our Families, friends and loved ones. Our home station team has taken great care to prepare facilities and resources for our returning Soldiers and our family readiness groups added personal touches to our barracks so single Soldiers felt welcomed when they arrived. Our loved ones have been in good hands of the dedicated Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield community members who have supported our Families while deployed.
Next, we will hold a huge Salute to Summer celebration June 17 -18 to welcome home the division and celebrate the reunion of our Soldiers and Families after the deployment. We will hold several sporting events, professional discussions with former Marne leaders and top it off with a big concert. Everyone is invited to attend and join in the celebration with us, it will be a great time!
Time does not slow down and neither does the 3rd Infantry Division, but it’s important to pause in these happy moments to acknowledge the important and incredible mission the division completed while deployed and celebrate our Dogface Soldiers and Families. They have accomplished tasks important to our Nation and we have postured ourselves as a combat-credible force ready for whatever mission we are called upon!
As always, thank you for your support,
Rock of the Marne!
Major General Chris Norrie
Dogface Soldier