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German positions.
    Deactivated after the war, the division would be reactivated and deactivated three times during the next four decades. The 31 st Infantry Regiment, however, remained on active duty status. General Douglas MacArthur assigned it to the 7 th Infantry Division for occupation duty in Korea, where it remained until the occupation ended in 1948.
    The regiment moved to the Japanese island of Hokkaido, but its stay was cut short by North Korea’s invasion of the South in 1950. The 31 st returned to Korea as an element of General MacArthur’s invasion force at Inchon.
    After Inchon, the regiment launched a second assault landing at Iwon, not far from Vladivostok, Russia. Polar Bear troops pushing toward the Yalu River suddenly encountered the Red Chinese Army sweeping down from Manchuria. Surrounded in a steel corridor of death, only 365 members of the task force’s original number of 3,200 survived. Lieutenant Colonel Don Faith, who took command of what was left of the 31 st Regiment after Colonel Alan MacLean was killed, also died trying to break out of the trap and lead his survivors to safety. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
    Battered and bloody and all but decimated, the 31 st evacuated by sea to Pusan where it rebuilt and retrained, then plunged back into battle to stop the Chinese at Chechon and join in the counteroffensive to retake Central Korea. By 1951, the line more or less stalemated along the 38 th Parallel.
    For the next two years, the 31 st slugged it out with Chinese and North Koreans across a series of cold, desolate hills that bore such names as Old Baldy, Pork Chop Hill, Triangle Hill, and OP Dale. By the time the war ended, the Polar Bear Regiment had suffered many times its strength in losses, and five of its soldiers had won Medals of Honor.
    In 1957, the U.S. Army reorganized infantry regiments into battle groups. The 31 st Infantry of the 1st Battle Group remained in Korea with the 7 th Infantry Division while its counterpart, the 31 st Infantry of the 2nd Battle Group, formed at Fort Rucker, Alabama. After 41 years, forthe first time in its history, the regiment’s flag flew over its U.S. homeland. Until then, it was the only regiment in the army never to have served inside the continental United States.
    The Vietnam War was beginning to build up some steam by that time. In 1963, the army abandoned the battle group concept and brought back brigades, regiments, and battalions. The 4 th Battalion of the 31 st Infantry Regiment (4/31 st ) was activated at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, in 1965. Less than a year later, it was operating in Vietnam’s War Zone D and around Tay Ninh near the Cambodian border. The 4 th Battalion was part of the last brigade to leave Vietnam.
    The Reagan buildup of the armed forces in 1985 finally merged the 31 st Infantry Regiment with a reconstituted 10 th Light Division to permanent status as the 10 th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). No longer strictly “ski” or “mountain” troops, the division’s strength lay in its ability to deploy by sea, air, or land anywhere in the world within 96 hours of being alerted, prepared to fight under harsh conditions of any sort.
    Throughout the 1990s and early 21 st Century, the 10 th continued to add to its reputation for being the most deployed unit in the U.S. Army. Its list of tours in far-flung and war-torn regions circumnavigated the globe: Haiti, the Horn of Africa, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Bosnia, Somalia, the Sinai, Qatar, Kuwait, Kosovo,
Desert Storm
in Iraq, Afghanistan, Operation
Iraqi Freedom
. . .
    During the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, made famous by the book and movie
BlackHawk Down
, the 10 th Mountain provided infantry for the UN quick reaction force sent into the embattled city to rescue Task Force Ranger. Two division soldiers died in the fighting.
    In 2001, 10 th Mountain soldiers were involved in the famous rescue of downed Navy SEALs during