OUR MISSION
The 3-353rd REGT is an extension of the Security Force Assistance Command (SFAC), Fort Liberty, NC. As the SFAC’s exclusive training battalion, our role concentrates on the operational readiness of Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) Advisor Teams at echelon. This is achieved through our employment as the SFAC’s Operations Group during multi-echelon validation exercise aimed preparing Force Packages for employment by Combatant Commands.
UNIT HISTORY
The 3-353rd Regiment began its service to the United States as one of over three hundred Infantry Regiments authorized by congress after the US entered the First World War on the Allied side in 1917. Activated at Camp Funston and assigned to the 89th Division, the Regiment sailed for France in July 1918. The Regiment saw combat during the St. Michael and Meuse-Argonne offensives and occupied defenses in Lorraine before and after the armistice ended formal hostilities on November 11, 1918. During the interwar period, the Regiment was based in Kansas as part of the organized reserves. It returned to active service in World War II, participating in the Rhineland and central Europe campaigns in 1945. The Regiment remained as a drilling unit of the US Army reserve and was briefly reactivated during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The unit was inactivated along with the rest of the 89th Infantry Division in 1996. Because of its close association with Camp Funston, the US Army Institute of Heraldry chose the 3-353rd Infantry Regiment as the designation for the battalion that would assume responsibility for training combat advisors at Camp Funston from 2006 to 2009. The three original battalions along with three new battalions were activated at Fort Polk on May 1, 2009 and formally assumed responsibility for combat advisor training on August 31, 2009. As part of the Army’s restructuring, the 162nd Infantry Brigade was deactivated on July 14, 2014. All of the 162nd Brigade’s former responsibilities now fell to the 3rd Battalion; one battalion now successfully completing all the missions previously given to a full brigade. On October 1, 2014 the 3-353rd regiment was re-assigned to the Fort Polk Joint Readiness Training Center Operations Group. On September 16, 2020, 3-353rd was reassigned to Security Force Assistance Command, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 3-353rd REGT’s close relationship with members of SFA community – Army, Joint, and Allied – enable the battalion to prepare and deliver tailorable, scalable, and regionally focused foundational and collective training across the SFAC enterprise.