86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team

The 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain) ("The Vermont Brigade") is an Army National Guard light infantry brigade headquartered in Vermont. It was reorganized from an armored brigade into an Infantry Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) as part of the United States Army's transformation for the 21st century. The 86th IBCT utilizes the Army Mountain Warfare School, co-located at Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho, Vermont, to train in individual military mountaineering skills so the entire brigade can be skilled in such warfare. This large conventional unit level mountain warfare capability had been lost when the 10th Mountain Division deactivated after World War II. This left the 86th IBCT as the only mountain warfare unit in the U.S. military whose soldiers were trained in mountain warfare, with individual soldiers being graduates of Ranger School, the Special Forces Advanced Mountain Operations School, and the Army Mountain Warfare School instead of entire units that specialized in such tactics. "The Vermont Brigade" configured itself to be such a unit.