We salute the soldiers who named their tank ‘Divine Intervention’

Anyone who reads Task & Purpose knows: we adore a good tank name.

Sure, we love our friends and families, but not as much as tanks with names like Dropped as a Baby, ASVAB Waiver, and Come And Take It.

To the list of excellent tank names we’ve chronicled over the years, we must now add “Divine Intervention,” an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank whose photo popped up recently on the military’s public archive for official images and video, the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, or DVIDS.

“Divine Intervention” belongs to 6th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Army Sgt. Myenn LaMotta of the 7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment snapped its picture as the crew showed off their war machine to British troops during an Oct. 1 joint promotion ceremony in Estonia.

The photo’s caption did not explain how “Divine Intervention” got its name, but the picture is certainly timely: It seems that just getting through the day during this government shutdown requires an act of divine intervention.

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British tank crews are known for their own wry sense of humor. One UK tanker crew made a July 4, 2020 video in which a Tommy toasted U.S. Independence Day by brewing the perfect cup of British tea, demonstrating that British tanks — unlike U.S. Abrams — are equipped with kettles for that very purpose.

Giving tanks a name is a tradition among tanker crews as old as tanks themselves, which debuted on battlefields in World War I.

Former loader and M1 gunner Wes Satoe told Task & Purpose that earning the right to name a tank is a major milestone for a crew in their training and careers.

“That’s our home. We live eat, sleep, and work on that vehicle,” Satoe said in 2023. A name “builds crew cohesion, is a morale booster, and a way for the crew to show their pride in their job to other crews.” 

Bye Felicia!

Naming rules for tanks are now more formalized across the Army. One administrative requirement is that names correspond with the company a tank belongs to. Divine Intervention, then, is likely in D company. A tank we noted named Article 15 was probably an A company tank, along with another named Academy Dropout.

Bye Felicia — a Task & Purpose favorite — likely hails from Bravo.

Most armor units now make crews earn the right to name their tank — which includes stenciling the name on the barrel of the main gun — as a reward for qualifying for full duty status in field and gunnery training. In 2023, III Armored Corps, which oversees most tanker formations in the Army, mandated that crews must earn a “distinguished” score of at least 900 points in gunnery qualification to earn a name.

“Naming a fighting platform is a long-standing tradition that we value; we are adding to that tradition by requiring more of ourselves,” an Army official said in 2023. “Our nation expects nothing less.” 

And according to former tanker and retired Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha, nobody wants to be the crew without a name. Romesha earned the Medal of Honor in Afghanistan in an October 2009 battle at Combat Outpost Keating.

Romesha told Task & Purpose: “It was a point of pride that you didn’t want to be that crew that just got back from gunnery, and everybody got to name their tank, and you see that frickin’ gun tube that’s got nothing on it.”