For many of the soldiers, it would be their first mission.
The 600 mostly young soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, were headed for the
Middle East, part of a group of some 3,500 U.S. paratroopers ordered to the region.
Days after U.S. President
Donald Trump ordered the drone killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, raising fears of fresh conflict in the Middle East, the men and women of the U.S. Army's storied 82nd Airborne Division are moving out in the largest "fast deployment" since the 2010 Haiti earthquake.