Thread by @18airbornecorps

All month we're honoring the 70th anniversary of the rebirth of the XVIII Airborne Corps, a unit established on Fort Bragg on May 21, 1951.

One of the main symbols of the Corps to the world is the Iron Mike statue on Fort Bragg.

Here is Iron Mike's story.

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The story starts with this man. You know Robert Sink. He commanded the 506th (aka the 5-Oh-Sink) in WWII and is portrayed by Dale Dye in Band of Brothers (and Robert Gould in A Bridge Too Far). There's also a Distinguished Visitors house on Bragg named after him.

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Well, you may not have known that Robert was the 6th commander of the XVIII Airborne after its rebirth in 1951. He commanded the corps from 1957 - 1960.

In 1958, Sink ordered his staff to build a monument representative of the Corps.

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Sink didn't have any real design in mind; he only hoped a statue of some kind would point to the Corps' legacy and instill a sense of pride in his fledgling unit.

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Just like any staff, Sink's Corps staff couldn't just get on with the work of identifying a monument. Instead, they put together a "planning team" that met for months and months.

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It wasn't until the next year, 1959, that they presented Sink an idea: an enormous statue of a WWII airborne paratrooper who's just landed on the drop zone and is surveying the road to the objective. This would point back to the Corps' WWII origin. Sink loved it.

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Some people say that the design was based on the cover of Ross Carter's 1951 book "Those Devils in Baggy Pants" about the 504th PIR in Italy in WWII. Those people are wrong (a few years later, Sink said the monument has nothing to do with the book cover or the 504).

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Others say that Special Forces General Michael Healy or WWII Paratrooper Michael Scambelluri are the inspiration for Iron Mike. This is also not true. Sink neither new nor served with these two "Iron Mikes."

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The monument was always meant to be a nameless, ageless Soldier who could represent the XVIII Airborne Corps in perpetuity. Sink wanted the Soldier to look calm and focused.

So, now the Corps staff had to get this thing built.

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Major James M. Wade, the Corps Logistics Officer (G-4) was tasked with organizing a team. Wade asked Leah Hiebert (pictured), the wife of the Deputy Post Chaplain Samuel Hiebert and a trained sculptress, to lead the sculpting and she agreed.

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In late 1960, after Sink left the XVIII Airborne Corps, Wade's design team came up with the Iron Mike moniker as a shorthand for the statute they were building. [it was to be made of iron and they came up with the common name "Mike"]

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In September of 1961, the statute was completed and ready to be moved to its home at the intersection of Bragg Boulevard and Knox Street. The site was chose for its accessibility and openness which allowed the statue to be viewed from a distance.

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Finally, September 23, 1961: the unveiling ceremony. By this time, Thomas Trapnell [this guy] was the Corps commander, but Sink returned from his new job commanding all forces in Panama for the ceremony. More than 1,000 people attended the ceremony.

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There were some big names from the Corps at that ceremony: Matthew Ridgeway (pictured in Korea later that same year), Anthony McAuliffe (the 101st commander who said "Nuts!" to the Germans), Maxwell Taylor, and William Westmoreland.

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The statue was covered with a parachute. Trapnell gave a speech: "This magnificent statue stands as a tribute to that special spirit and indomitable courage which marks this corps." After the speech, Trapnell pulled down the parachute to reveal the statute.

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The statute was beautiful. Made from polyester strips, dipped in epoxy, and stretched over a steel frame, it stood 16 feet 4 inches and weighed 3,235 pounds.

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Iron Mike was in a remote location (this spot in the pic) on Bragg and in the 1970s, some hooligans came onto Fort Bragg and defaced and damaged Iron Mike (this was back when Fort Bragg was an open post).

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As a result, in 1979, Iron Mike was moved to a busier location: the traffic circle outside of the Corps headquarters.

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In the ensuing decades, Iron Mike got rusty. In 2005, it was replaced with the more detailed bronze statue that you see near the Corps HQ today [of course, Iron Mike is no longer made of iron].

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The original was moved downtown to the Airborne & Special Ops museum where it still stands on display.

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Iron Mike remains a monument to the legacy of the XVIII Airborne Corps and continues to represent the Corps' Soldiers today: gritty, determined, ready to lead the way.