Event in Pendleton honors the Triple Nickles, the nation’s first all-Black paratrooper battalion

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Event in Pendleton honors the Triple Nickles, the nation’s first all-Black paratrooper battalion

An event in Pendleton this weekend will honor the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, also known as the Triple Nickles. Formed during WWII, the unit was the first all-Black paratrooper battalion in the U.S. military. The Nickles were stationed in Pendleton as part of Operation Firefly, a top-secret effort to intercept and disarm Japanese balloon bombs that were floated over the Pacific. The unit fought the wildfires caused by the balloons as som…