CENTCOM NEWS RELEASES

801ST DONATES SHOES, SUPPLIES TO NEGLECTED SCHOOLS

MOSUL, Iraq – Soldiers of the 801st Main Support Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), spent Tuesday afternoon at the Al Busaif Primary School presenting the school’s bright-eyed students with shoes for their feet and supplies for their minds. By the end of the day, hundreds of little feet were crowned with brand new shoes, while little backpacks were filled with new writing utensils, notepads, coloring books and other school supplies.

The school supplies were sent to soldiers in Iraq from U.S. citizens. Coalition Forces paid for the shoes at a price tag of nearly $6,000 for the school’s 1,300 children.

The 801st is part of a division-wide project called Operation Adopt-a-Village. Soldiers have spent the last month helping restore the primary school, along with a smaller nearby intermediate-level school.


101ST LOCATES NUMEROUS WEAPONS CACHES IN NORTHERN IRAQ

MOSUL, Iraq – Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) discovered weapons caches Dec. 30 in and around the city of Mosul.

In the 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) area of operations a source led soldiers to a group of freshly dug holes, one of which contained two bags full of 82-millimeter mortar rounds. Also a local civilian guided forces to a cache consisting of 185 60-millimeter mortar rounds and 160 82-millimeter mortars.

In both instances explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams destroyed all rounds in place.