218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade ( United States ) The 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade is a maneuver enhancement brigade of the United States Army National Guard of South Carolina . It formerly was a heavy brigade combat team . As an ME brigade , it will control a mix of engineer , military police and chemical units . History . The 218th Heavy Separate Brigade was the largest Major Subordinate Command in South Carolina . It was one of the fifteen Enhanced Readiness Brigade s in the Army National Guard . Enhanced Readiness Brigades are the highest priority combat formations in the National Guard . Congressman John Spratt secured $ 100 million in funding in 1997 and 1998 to upgrade M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle s for the 118th Mechanized Infantry , which is headquartered in Newberry and has companies in Chester , Winnsboro , and Gaffney . For his staunch support of the National Guard , the National Guard Association of the United States awarded Congressman John Spratt one of its highest honors , the Charles Dick Medal of Merit . In accepting , Spratt said his support for the Guard comes naturally , because he knows so many " first - rate citizen - soldiers " who serve in the South Carolina National Guard . Spratt views the Guard as a cost - effective way of keeping combat - ready forces . But for the Guard to be combat - ready , he believes its units have to be on parity with their parent units in the regular Army when it comes to weapons and equipment . Significantly , Congressional initiatives in 1997 and 1998 accelerated this Brigade ' s modernization by programming defense dollars for upgrading its Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles from the M2A0 model to the M2A2 model that provides enhanced crew protection and capabilities . The Brigade ' s tanks ( M1A1 Abrams ) were already on a par with those used by the active Army . The Brigade ' s artillery battalion is programmed for modernization in 2001 . The 218th was one of three Army Guard enhanced maneuver brigades that comprise the Army ' s 24th Infantry Division , headquartered at Fort Riley , Kansas , that was reactivated in June 1999 . The two other brigades are located in North Carolina and Georgia . Nearly 10 years after the Persian Gulf War , the 218th is part of Army ' s new ' integrated ' 24th Infantry Division , which in its previous life helped liberate Kuwait . It is considered an example of how closely active and reserve components are now working together . For the 218th Brigade Combat Team , the weeks of July 2000 were crucial . The soldiers spent two years preparing for their unit ' s first full - scale training rotation in southern California . There is no better way to replicate the fog of war than at the National Training Center . The brigade , supported by nearly 2 , 000 more citizen - soldiers in the Palmetto State Task Force , trained in many ways to pull off what was said to be the largest peacetime deployment of National Guard forces in history . More than $ 21 million was budgeted for the entire exercise , South Carolina Guard officials reported . Although South Carolina has fielded the bulk of the force , citizen - soldiers and airmen from 26 other states were engaged in the cross - country mission that will ended 30 July 2000 . More than 1 , 800 tanks , armored fighting vehicles and other pieces of equipment were hauled from South Carolina to California on railroad cars and trucks . Seven Apache attack helicopter s were flown down from Idaho to beef up the brigade ' s 373 - soldier aviation task force . Still other helicopters were flown from the East Coast on C - 5 cargo plane s . The vast array of ground vehicles were unloaded in Yermo , California , and convoyed across the desert to Fort Irwin for two weeks . The leadership of the 218th Brigade were activated immediately after 9 / 11 to control all of homeland security east of the Mississippi River . While many soldiers were activated along with their leaders to work in airports , sea ports , and other locations vital to national security , the units of the 218th were assigned to other National Guard brigades and Active Army Units in a piecemeal fashion for peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo , as well as the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan . Once the brigade had completed all of those missions , it was activated as a whole to take over Task Force Phoenix in Afghanistan in 2007 . External links . Awards :