History
The 82nd Airborne Division is an airborne infantry division of the U.S. Army, specializing in parachute assault operations into denied areas with a U.S. Department of Defense requirement. They were first formed in 1912 and are based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The 82nd Airborne Division is part of the XVIII Airborne Corps and is the U.S. Army's most strategically mobile division.
When Manhattan was invaded by Fire Demons from Muspelheim, troops under the command of Major Sauleda arrived via helicopter to assist the Avengers.[1] After the demon invasion had been repelled and the bodies of the demons had disappeared, the troops remained in the city to looking for wounded to treat.[2]
Some months later, members of the 82nd Airborne under the command of Lieutenant Glazier were aboard a USAF military transport aircraft carrying them from the west coast to Guam. When heavy weather forced the plane to climb, it was hit by something big (a pterosaur) and lost power. Spotting an island below, they parachuted down to it. Although the flight crew didn't make it off the plane in time, all of the troops made it down okay except for one guy who died of a broken neck when he got hung up in the trees. While trying to recover the body, the soldiers discovered that the island was inhabited by dinosaurs who proved to be a continuous danger to them. Some hours later, after most of the men had set up camp at one end of the island, a scouting party encountered five civilians who claimed to be the Fantastic Four and that they had just arrived but had mysteriously lost their powers. Lieutenant Glazier doubted their claims but became slightly more trusting when Ben Grimm used a miniature rocket launcher to kill a spinosaurus that had just killed one of the soldiers. Despite this, the soldiers didn't fully accept that the FF were who they claimed to be until the next day, when Grimm wore his Thing Exoskeleton to drive off an attacking Deinonychus pack. Some hours later, the combined group discovered that part of the island had disappeared, pulled back millions of years into the past from which it had come, apparently taking the men who had been camped there with it.[3]
With time running out before the rest of the island disappeared, the soldiers and the FF worked together to build a raft in a cove on the further side of the island. They succeeded in launching the raft in time but then found themselves trapped by an invisible barrier that was the true perimeter of the time disruption surrounding the island. As their raft was about to be smashed by an attacking Kronosaurus, the barrier opened up before them, allowing them to pass through into their own time. However, as they watched the last of the island disappear, the raft, being made from logs and creepers from the island, also disappeared, leaving them floating in the Pacific Ocean. Just as they were contemplating having to make a very long swim home, the members of the FF regained their powers. While the Invisible Woman created a raft out of her invisible force field that would keep them out of the water and Mister Fantastic pulled Glazier and another man to the raft, the Human Torch flew off to make contact with a ship or an aircraft and bring help. In all, only eight of the men from the plane escaped from Dinosaur Island.[4]Notes
- In Thor #351, the newly-arrived Major Sauleda tells his men to let the enemy know that "the Screamin' Eagles have arrived!" However, this is a continuity error because, as in the real world, that is the nickname of the 101st Airborne Division. The 82nd are actually known as the All American Division whose motto is "Death from Above."
See Also
- 4 appearance(s) of 82nd Airborne Division (Earth-616)
- 1 image(s) of 82nd Airborne Division (Earth-616)
- 1 member(s) of 82nd Airborne Division (Earth-616)