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82nd Airborne’s Gainey Company uncases colors, paves the way for innovation

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Paratroopers of Gainey Company, activated in a provisional status with Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division, uncased their guidon during a ceremony Wednesday on Fort Bragg.

Gainey Company will operate as a specialty company harnessing innovation and testing, proving, and propagating technology across the division.

“We’ve got a moral obligation as leaders inside this division to stay at the forefront of technology, to put it in the hands of our paratroopers so they can win every fight,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher LaNeve, commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division.

The 82nd Airborne strives to create a climate for individual growth for paratroopers and to place leaders at points of friction to develop the tactics, techniques, and procedures that will be most effective on the modern battlefield, according to Army officials. Gainey Company is a critical component for paratroopers to assess, develop, and train to use new equipment before it is distributed across the division.

“We have a moral imperative to our paratroopers,” said Capt. Adam Johnson, commander of Gainey Company. “We want them to have the best equipment and the best TTPs to go, fight, and win.”

Gainey Company has four platoons. The Integrated Tactical Network Platoon supports the Army’s approach to introducing commercial components and network transport capabilities into the Army’s tactical network. The Robotics and Autonomous Systems Platoon supports the division’s unmanned aerial and ground systems. The Technical Effects Platoon sustains the building of decoys, emitters, and other operations. The Airborne Innovation Lab Platoon includes paratroopers managing a research lab.

The lab allows paratroopers to learn tactical innovation and to effectively create solutions to problems encountered on the drop zone through electrical, subtractive, and additive manufacturing engineering.

Gainey Company is the only company in the division whose sole job is developing and empowering the transformation of the 82nd Airborne Division.

Paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne are known as innovators who are at the forefront of tactics and technology from the beaches of Normandy to the modern day. Gainey Company will help the division adapt to contemporary threats, Army officials said.

“What sets Gainey Company paratroopers apart from the rest of the division is the intangible drive to change and innovate, which is something that I look for when I’m hiring people into Gainey Company,” added Johnson. “This helps to proliferate the culture of change across the division.”

The unit is named for retired Command Sgt. Maj. William J. Gainey, the first senior enlisted adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a paratrooper who cut his teeth in the 82nd Airborne Division.

The position was created to advise the chairman on matters of professional development of enlisted personnel. Gainey Company represents the sergeant major’s innovation and motivation to lead from the front that is embodied by the paratrooper.

“There are lots of leaders that have come out of the 82nd Airborne Division. Today, we are going to celebrate the leader that is the embodiment of all of them,” said Maj. Gen. LaNeve. “Command Sgt. Maj. Gainey, you’ve left a legacy with this division. Your spirit will always live on in this formation.”

Gainey said he was both honored and humbled to see the company activated.

“Be the best you can be,” he told the formation. “And the best guys and gals is not always the one who’s getting the trophy; it’s the person who’s doing the best they can mentally do.”

“The division will always be lethal, but we can be more lethal,” said LaNeve. “This division will always be fast, but we can be faster. This division will always be one of the most innovative and light divisions in our formation. … Gainey Company is the embodiment of the way forward for the 82nd Airborne Division.”

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Source: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, 82nd Airborne Division, technology, Army

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