MICHAEL GILBERT/THE NEWS TRIBUNE FILE Col. Mike Rounds, facing camera, meets Gen. John Abizaid, right, commander of the U.S. Central Command, in Mosul, Iraq, in January. Rounds gave up command of the first Stryker brigade Wednesday.
Col. Mike Rounds led the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division for 29 months.
"As much as I'd love to stay, the Army's got a system," the 45-year-old infantry officer said in an interview Wednesday.
Brigade command typically lasts about two years. Rounds is completing his third tour at Fort Lewis.
The Army has not announced his next job. Rounds and his wife, Julie, and their children Kaitlin and Alex will get to spend the holidays together here before they move in January, he said.
The colonel said he's welcoming the free time at the holidays. Rounds and the 5,000 soldiers under his command spent last Christmas in the Sunni Triangle.
The Army announced in late 1999 that it would build new brigades as an alternative to its Cold War-era light infantry and heavy armor formations.
By the time Rounds took command in June 2002, the first of the new brigades was being built around the new Stryker armored vehicles and a high-tech communication network. His brigade conducted major training exercises in California and Louisiana before heading to the Middle East in November 2003.
Based on 3rd Brigade's performance in Iraq, senior Army leaders, defense analysts and members of Congress have pronounced the Stryker concept a success.
The Army is reorganizing its combat brigades in part based on ideas validated by 3rd Brigade.
The brigade's new commander is Col. Stephen Townsend, a Georgia-born veteran of operations in Grenada, Panama, Haiti and Afghanistan.
His last job was operations and plans officer of the 10th Mountain Division and the Combined Joint Task Force 180 at Bagram, Afghanistan.