Its 2nd Battalion is assigned to the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, located at Fort Liberty, North Carolina.

All members of the regiment were parachute volunteers, but only a minor fraction were actually qualified jumpers during training at Camp Toccoa, GA.

This was its home base during prolonged maneuvers in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana, and until January 1944, when the regiment deployed to England, by way of Camp Myles Standish, MA.

[2] The troop aircraft formations were widely scattered due to a combination of low clouds, poor visibility and enemy anti-aircraft fire.

The ensuing action bore little resemblance to their briefing, but because the soldiers were well prepared, the regiment and the division accomplished its multiple missions, but none of them as rehearsed.

Members of this ad hoc force included both General Maxwell Taylor and Assistant Division Commander Gerald Higgins.

The fatal flaw in the plan became more evident each day as the forces proved too few to both keep open the key highway and also fight on to a linkup with the British Airborne across the Rhine.

The 1st Airborne Division paid the full price for this flaw as they went down fighting against overwhelming odds; less than two thousand men escaped death or capture.

The 501st, with the rest of the division, moved from initial objective areas to positions on "the island" between the Waal and Rhine Rivers; it became clear that they would not be withdrawn from the Netherlands after a few days, as they had been told; their manpower was too much needed by the hard-pressed British.

Much less an extrovert than Johnson, he more than made up for any lack of "flash and dash" with a keen mind, tactical prescience and all around professional competence.

After 72 days of combat in the Netherlands the division returned to a new staging area in Mourmelon, France, for what everyone thought would be a long, well-deserved rest.

The Germans had launched a major offensive at dawn on 16 December through the Ardennes in the lightly held sector of VII Corps.

The 101st was ordered to move "truckborne" to Bastogne, the hub town of a major radial road net, to stem the oncoming Germans.

Ballard who was not a professional soldier like Johnson or Ewell, but an officer who had learned how to command quietly and effectively while winning the admiration and respect of his men.

In the spring of 1956, the 501st and the 101st moved (less personnel and equipment) to Fort Campbell, KY, where they were activated as a provisional organization to test the "Pentomic concept.

The word pentomic referred to the five battle groups, which were in lieu of regiments and to the division's organic atomic weapon capability.

On 1 September 1957, Company B, 501PIR was reorganized and re-designated as Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Airborne Battle Group, 501st Infantry as an organic element of the 82nd Airborne Division, and activated at Fort Bragg, NC (concurrently, organic elements constituted and activated at Fort Bragg).

The 2nd Battalion, 501st participated in Operation Texas Star, which culminated in the Battle of Fire Support Base Ripcord in July 1970.

The entire 101st participated in Operation Dewey Canyon II, in support of the ARVN attack on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos in February–March 1971.

Of the three original parachute regiments organic or attached to the 101st Airborne Division in World War II, the 501st remains as the only unit on jump status.

JTF 1–501 deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan from October 2003 until August 2004 under the direct command of CJTF-180 and 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division.

However, in comparison to the prior Soviet occupation, within just a few visits and 'elder tea meetings', the 501st quickly earned the trust of the local people and militia/warlords.

Furthermore, the 501st secured the Afghani border, organized the first known meeting between Afghani/Pakistani Officials since the Durand Line was established, created inter and intrastate commerce, advised on (and helped build) civil-security, conducted 'tail-gate' medicine to help with local health and prosperity issues, and even provided security for male and female children schools (often the target of radical Islam terrorist operations), with the overall intent to secure the entire region for local Democratic elections and allow for mutual peace and mutual prosperity of the Afghani/Pakistani region.

The unit was the tenant organization at FOB Iskandariyah and conducted full-spectrum operations in the area's major population centers: Bahbahani, Jurf as Sakhr, Musayyib and Tahrir.

Seven soldiers were killed in action during the deployment; they are honored with a large stone memorial located in front of the battalion headquarters at Fort Richardson.

The night before their first attempt to prove the feasibility of a mass jump, some U.S. paratroopers at Fort Benning watched the film Geronimo (1939).

While drinking with fellow paratroopers after the show, Private Aubrey Eberhardt announced he would shout the name "Geronimo" when he jumped to prove he was not scared.

[10][11] During World War II, the 101st Airborne Division undertook steps to identify paratroopers from each divisional element visually.

The tradition was carried over after the switch to the Army Combat Uniform as part of the Rapid Fielding Initiative in 2006 and again worn in Iraq.

A similar insignia has been recently appropriated for use by the current 101st Aviation Brigade to match that of other elements within the 101st Airborne Division which chose to use their original World War II regimental helmet markings.