Fort Benning welcomes the 50th Commander of the Infantry. Major General Michael Barbero officially handed over command Wednesday morning to Major General Michael Ferriter.
General Ferriter comes to Fort Benning from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He has served at Fort Benning before.
General Barbero is leaving Fort Benning to take over the chain of command for General David Petraeus in Iraq.
It was a day only eight months in the making for Barbero. He came to Fort Benning in November, after a 17th month tour in Iraq. Now he has only 30 days to prep for tour number three.
Barbero says, “It's my time to go. We've had many soldiers on the parade field that have done 3 or 4 deployments, so its kind of hard to say no or even hesitate when you get the call, because were here to serve.”
Barbero will be serving as Commander for the Multi National Security Transition Command and NATO Training in Iraq. The deployment comes with a promotion to Lt. General and it comes with some new responsibilities, “I think there are two goals. First one is to make sure we do a clean hand off to the Iraqis and they have the capabilities to take over from us, and also the institutions like Fort Benning. How do we build a Maneuver Center for the Iraqis? The second one, what should be our relationship in the future, military to military with the Iraqis.”
Barbero is leaving General Ferriter with relationships of his own to forge as the Infantry School merges with the Armor School.
General Ferriter says he looks forward to working on BRAC, “Everybody who comes here is on our team, and our team is growing.”
Despite the growth headed to Fort Benning, General Ferriter says one thing about the post hasn't changed, “It's sort of the Benning bonus, that energy when you get near here and when you drive through a gate, that's what stays the same.”
General Ferriter says his goal for Fort Benning is to stay in communication with leaders in the field to make sure soldiers are equipped with what they need to know to deal with current issues.
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