awarded campaign streamers for the defense of Saudi Arabia and the Liberation and Defense of Kuwait, and received its fifth Meritorious Unit Commendation. The individuals of the battalion were awarded 48 Bronze Star Medals and 297 Army Commendation Medals from 3rd Armored Division and the 926th Engineer Group. Operation Enduring Freedom Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, under command of Lieutenant Colonel (later Colonel) Curtis Thalken, an element of Headquarters Company together with A and B Companies and a platoon from the 306th Engineer Company of the US Army Reserves, were deployed in support of 10th Mountain Division and the 101st Airborne Division. The immediate mission was to provide rapid runway repair, clear multiple aircraft wrecks, build a detainee holding cell, construct base camps and administrative facilities, construct seven kilometers of roads, construct sewerage and a water treatment facility, construct thousands of feet of survivability ditches and conduct mine clearing operations. The battalion deployed in two phases. Initially, the battalion commander with a headquarters element and Company B, initially deployed by air via Rhein–Main Air Force Base to the former Soviet airfield at Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan. Company B later moved to Bagram, Afghanistan in direct support of 10th Mountain Division. The remainder of the battalion, under the command of battalion executive officer Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Stephen C. Larsen, organized for deployment directly into Afghanistan two months later. During the second phase, the deployed headquarters element relocated to the largely destroyed international airport at Kandahar, Afghanistan in direct support of the 3rd Brigade "Task Force Rakkasans", 101st Airborne Division, receiving additional Headquarters Company assets and the deploying Company A under the command of Captain Stephanie Ahern. Captain Ahern is likely the first female US Army officer to command an engineer company in combat. Company A deployed by air via a Pacific Ocean route with trans-loading from US Air Force C-5 aircraft to C-17 aircraft at the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. This complex, two-phase operation constituted the largest aerial deployment of heavy combat construction equipment (including D7 bulldozers, road graders, 20-ton dump trucks, and hydraulic excavators) and personnel at that time. These elements of the 92nd, the only deployed engineer battalion in the Army at that time, built what was to be the U.S. and coalition forces’ initial base camp, staging area and port for debarkation of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Prior to the Battalion's arrival,