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Stars & Stripes<\/a> reports that troops of the 82d Airborne Division made a nonstop flight from Fort Bragg, North Carolina to drop zones in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.<\/p>\n More than 600 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division and the British army’s 16 Air Assault Brigade made nonstop flights from Fort Bragg to Eastern Europe, traveling more than 4,300 miles before leaping onto drop zones near Riga, Latvia and Rukla, Lithuania, on Saturday.<\/p>\n “This is about global readiness for us,” said Maj. Gen. Erik Kurilla, the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division. “This is a package that can go anywhere in the world very quickly. Speed matters. This is just a small portion of the [Global Response Force]. The [Global Response Force remains scalable in size and tailorable in scope to a wide array of crises contingencies.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I once made a jump into Alaska after a nine-hour flight from Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia, so I can only imagine a 4300-mile flight.<\/p>\n n addition to American and British paratroopers, Swift Response also featured airborne forces from Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Spain.<\/p>\n “The 82nd Airborne Division is committed to supporting European security,” [Maj. Gen. Erik Kurilla, the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division] said. “We maintain a broad interoperability agenda with a fully developed partnership with multinational airborne forces. This kind of complex operation is the result of that partnership. In fact, we incorporate multinational officers at all echelons of the division, to include our British deputy commanding general. Our allied partners do not operate as liaisons; they serve as leaders and planners alongside the rest of us.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n