Posted on 06/24/2004 6:25:14 AM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
The Army's second Stryker brigade is bound for Iraq later this year, but it will leave its namesake vehicles home at Fort Lewis.
Instead, soldiers will fall in on the 310 or so Strykers and hundreds of Humvees and trucks their Fort Lewis comrades from the first Stryker brigade are using now across northern Iraq, officials said.
The two brigades will swap places beginning in October, Stryker spokesman Capt. Tim Beninato said Wednesday.
The announcement of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division's deployment order confirms what its 4,000 soldiers and their families have assumed since they completed the Stryker transformation in April.
It also gives families from the initial Stryker brigade - the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division - a little more reason to be optimistic that their soldiers' one-year deployment to Iraq will really last just one year. They left Fort Lewis in November.
Sue Shocklee, who has a son in the first group of Strykers, tempered her reaction with the awareness that other units have been extended as long as three and four months, and that "things can always change, even at the last minute."
"As long as he's alive and well when he does return to the U.S. I'll be extremely relieved whenever it is," said Shocklee, of St. Louis. "Until then, I'll continue to pray that he doesn't 'come home' before."
Although the eight-wheel Stryker vehicles will likely rack up an average of 18,000 to 20,000 miles by the time of the switch, they're performing well, Army and company officials said. And manufacturer General Dynamics Land Systems has plenty of mechanics in Iraq to keep them running, they said.
The company will boost its support team in Iraq from 52 employees to 55. There likely will be an increased demand for repair parts, said Paul Dickinson, the General Dynamics site manager at Fort Lewis.
"But we think the vehicle is going to survive that," Dickinson said. "It has shown it has the capability to do that so far.
"I just think it's going to be OK," he said. "That's our feeling."
Officials said the Stryker swap is intended to reduce costs and ease the transition of the new troops into the Iraqi theater.
"This is not unique to the Stryker brigades. Others are falling in uparmored Humvees that were left in theater, interceptor body armor, you name it," Beninato said.
Soldiers from the 1st Brigade couldn't be reached Wednesday for reaction to the news that they'll be working with not-so-gently used vehicles. The brigade is on block leave after three weeks of convoy training at the Yakima Training Center. That followed virtually non-stop training over the past 2 1/2 years at Fort Lewis, Yakima, Fort Irwin, Calif., and Fort Polk, La.
Their predecessors in the 3rd Brigade convoyed north from Kuwait to Samarra and Balad, just north of Baghdad, in December, and then to Mosul and other cities across the far north of Iraq in late December and January.
Since then they've put high miles on their vehicles running missions from the Turkish and Syrian borders, and protecting convoys all across central Iraq.
So far four Strykers have been lost or heavily damaged:
•Two sustained major electrical damage after they rolled into an irrigation canal in December near Duluiyah, an accident that claimed the lives of three soldiers.
•One was destroyed by fire in a roadside bomb attack in Samarra, also in December. The driver suffered a broken foot but all soldiers inside got out safely.
•One was destroyed by fire in Mosul in March after rocket-propelled grenades ignited an external fuel tank. No soldiers were injured.
One soldier was killed when a grenade was thrown onto the roof of his Stryker; otherwise, no soldiers have been killed by enemy fire on the vehicles, according to brigade officials and news accounts.
Officials said that while the Army has decided to replace one Stryker brigade with another, that doesn't mean they will have the same mission in the same location. That will be up to the U.S. Central Command to decide.
By the time the next brigade arrives in October, Iraq will be four months into its new sovereignty. U.S. commanders say they intend to play a much less visible role in the country's day-to-day security.
Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the Fort Lewis-based commander of U.S. troops in the north, said he hopes there's a dramatic difference following next week's handover.
"On July 1, what I want Iraqi people to say is, 'Where are the airplanes? Where are the Strykers?'" Ham told reporters earlier this week. "And what they'll see instead will be Iraqi troops."
The Stryker brigades are a medium-weight force the Army is developing to complement its heavy armored and light infantry units. The brigades are designed to be easier to deploy and support than the heavy units, and more mobile and sturdier than light infantry.
The first two were built at Fort Lewis beginning in early 2000. Four more are being developed in Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Congress is pushing the Bush administration to pay for a seventh.
Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921
mike.gilbert@mail.tribnet.com
ping
My feelings too.
Steve says they are telling them that they will be going home in October.
Good news, bump!
I used to agree with this vehicle. I bought into this garbage I was told. Now I realize that:
A vehicle designed for urban ops that has the turning radius of a bus (No pivot steer).
Less protection and firepower than a Bradley.
So wide it won't fit down most allys in most cities when the bird cage armor is added.
Is only on paper air movable via C-130. A prerequisite that was one of the MAIN selling points but which the vehicle can't really do.
Is expensive as hell, requires changes in doctrine and has a completely diferent logistical requirement.
No, in retrospect I think this was a multi-billion dollar idea that was right up there with black Berrets from our former CoS of the Army.
I think it's no coincidence that they are left behind or that they give those units less hostile areas. Of course they had few casualties. Why? They stuck TANKS old M1 TANKS in Baghdad, Falluja, Kufa, Karbala. Did you hear any generals screamming for more Strykers during the war?
Red6
Gee, could all those people that said the Stryker was the wrong vehicle have been right?
Bump!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.