"Go to Zero!"

"As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big." - Donald Trump
We have a new rallying cry - "Go to Zero!" The order has been given. There is no more mystery as to how this is going to end. The long-awaited decision has finally been made. Everyone is to be out of Iraq by year's end. We are definitely several pages into the final chapter of operations in Iraq. Some of us here now - including me - were here in the beginning. Now, over eight years after the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we will also be here to witness the end as we bring Operation New Dawn to a close. However, there is a mountain of work to be completed between now and the end of the year. In order to go to zero we will have to move a lot of remaining equipment, vehicles, and personnel out of the country. As much as my Battalion has already accomplished up to this point of the deployment, it has all been practice for the big game. The best has been saved for last. We are going out with a full sprint to the finish line. Our Soldiers and their trucks will represent the enablers to make our rallying cry a reality. And the reality has also set in that we will have no rest between now and the end. Being the Gypsy Battalion has given us first hand knowledge of the amount of cargo we need to move south. But we are up for the challenge.

At the conclusion of World War II in Europe, the U.S. initiated Operation Magic Carpet. This was a monumental redeployment of forces from Europe back to the United States. It was a phenomenal logistic achievement that involved the transfer of over a million troops and hundreds of thousands of military vehicles of all types. Although the task ahead for our military in Iraq is nowhere near as big as the redeployment from Europe in 1945, it is still the largest single operation of its type since the conclusion of World War II. History is in the making. I remind my Soldiers of this every day. They respond. Our Battalion is very new, having just been formed a few years ago as the first of its type in the Army Reserve. Now we are earning the first ever campaign streamer for the Battalion Colors. Future generations of Soldiers who serve in this Battalion will look upon that streamer and wonder what it took to earn. We won't have to wonder. We earned it.

Upon the decks and flatbeds of our trucks we will execute the order as it has been given - "Go to Zero!"