Free Republic

   BRUCE KELLMAN | THE NEWS TRIBUNE Some blank-faced, some smiling, soldiers with the 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment leave McChord Air Force Base on Thursday for Kuwait. The 400 or so men and women will eventually see combat in Iraq. They replace soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, who start returning next week. Goodbye, ordinary world ANGIE LEVENTIS; The News Tribune Lt. Daniel Burkhart spent the last few days before his deployment to Iraq with his parents who flew in from Massachusetts to say goodbye. His mother, Sandra Burkhart, didn't break down until it was time...

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...