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A few months ago we had an inside look at the Stryker Ground Vehicle. But setting aside all the facts and figures, does it have enough to take over for the M113 APC? Here's a special report on that very question. March 2nd 2004, Baghdad. A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded when Islamist terrorists attacked a convoy and threw an incendiary device into their armored M1114 High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). March 25th 2004, Fallujah. A Humvee was burned and destroyed by a rioting mob after a shootout between Islamist terrorists and a U.S. Army convoy. March 28th...

   Aussie serves with Stryker Brigade as a sniperBy Sgt. Fred Minnick Tall Afar, Iraq – In 2001, Spc. John Shore, 20, went to his hometown army recruiting station in Sydney, Australia, and requested a position in an Australian army combat arms unit. The recruiter told Shore that only combat support slots were available, but Shore didn’t want to serve as an administrative specialist or a cook. He desired a life jam-packed with adventure and danger. He knew he wanted to be an infantry soldier. Although he grew up in Australia, Shore had always held a dual citizenship because...

Aug. 24, 2004 -- Military officials are cracking down on blogs written by soldiers and Marines in Iraq, saying some of them reveal sensitive information. Critics say it's an attempt to suppress unflattering truths about the U.S. occupation. NPR's Eric Niiler reports. Army Spc. Colby Buzzell, stationed near Mosul with the First Battallion, 23rd Regiment, says he began his My War Web log to help combat boredom. "I'm just writing about my experiences," Buzzell says. "I'm pretty much putting my diary on the Internet -- that's all it is." Buzzell says he has avoided describing sensitive information, such as U.S....

"Please god, grant me the serenity to accept the fact that the human race is all things good, and all things evil. At the same time, grant me the courage, and strength to not give up what I know is right, even though its hopeless, and please give me the wisdom to take it day by day." -Blood For Blood Back when I was civilian, I lived in Los Angeles for awhile. Why I moved to LA I don't know, I just did. On random nights I used to go up to the historic Griffith Observatory up in the Hollywood...

STUTTGART, Germany (AP) - The U.S. military will keep a significant troop presence in Germany and even expand some bases, a senior U.S. commander said Thursday, despite the planned withdrawal of two Cold War-era divisions over the next decade. Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, deputy head of the U.S. military's European Command, also said major Air Force installations in Germany would be untouched by the troop realignment plans that President Bush announced Monday. Wald said a new, mobile brigade using lighter Stryker armored vehicles would be added, and major headquarters would also stay. ``The real issue is not the...

Today we drove around somewhere to do something. All of us in the back of the vehicle brought a book to read during this ride. I brought George Orwell's, Homage To Catalonia tome. The New York Times refers to it as "perhaps the best book that exists on the Spanish Civil War." Our Combat Medic brought a thick ass book called The History Of Western Philosophy, and the other two brought a George Carlin book and the other a paperback vampire ghosts and goblins Ann Rice novel. The Medic was telling us that Ann Rice novels all have suggestive "gay"...

Today I received my first writing assignment. Not really the most glamorous of writing assignments, but a writing assignment none the less. It was a simple write up for an award that's going to be turned in for another soldier in my Plt, for his actions on 04 Aug. When I first got here, I asked my wife to mail me a small portable dictionary and a thesaurus. Something I could stash in my cargo pocket and read whenever I needed something to help pass the time. She mailed me a pretty good one that was a Dictionary and a...

A U.S. Army Stryker brigade stationed in the north of Iraq, around Mosul, for eight months now, has proved itself quite capable. The Stryker armored vehicles are controversial, as they are light armored vehicles that move via wheels, rather than tracks. The Stryker brigade equipment exchanged a lot of armor protection and heavy weapons for more electronics and communications equipment. The brigade has an initial version of the “battlefield Internet” that the army is slowly putting together. The action in and around Mosul is not as heavy as it is down around Baghdad. But there are heavily armed Baath party...

The only time my father ever opened up to me about his experience in Vietnam was when I went home to visit my parents on a three day weekend prior to my deployment to the two way live fire here in Iraq. I remember growing up, my brother and I would always rent all the cool Vietnam movies, like Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Casualties Of War, whatever, you name em, me and my brother rented them. And we'd always try to get my father to watch them with us. But he never did. He'd watch like two seconds...

The other day, we went somewhere, and did something. Once we got there, we dismounted from our vehicles, and our Sqd Ldr placed us where he wanted us to be, and then told us our sectors of fire. Me and my AG went down and set in behind this burm. Today, my AG brought a new toy with him. An expensive mini hand held digital camcorder he ordered off the Internet. He just received it the other day in the mail, and he was extremely excited to have one now. Like a kid with a new toy on Christmas he...

One of the soldiers in my Plt has a little hand held micro-cassette recorder. He uses it to record messages back and forth to his wife back home. So out of extreme boredom I borrowed it from him, and I asked the first English speaking Iraqi person I could find, a couple questions. (Note: This interview was NOT taken at gunpoint. I was completely un-armed when I interviewed this individual.) QUESTION: What do you personally think of the US being here in Iraq and what seems to be the overall Iraq feelings about that? ANSWER: I wish that American Forces...

I never even knew what a Blog was until I read about them in an article in Time Magazine, about two months ago. I read the article and it mentioned how a lot of the soldiers down in Baghdad were writing about their experiences here in Iraq. After reading the article, I went down to the Internet caf‚, and checked them out, and a majority of them were just pure garbage. In fact nauseating. Its like they were written by armed forces recruiters, "Oh I love the Army, I'm soo glad to be here, oh, the Iraqi's love us, I...

It didn't get much media coverage, but troops from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade say fighting last Wednesday in Mosul was the heaviest and most sustained combat they've seen in their nine months in Iraq. Insurgents with mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47s and improvised bombs fought a series of coordinated, running attacks against Stryker and Iraqi troops. One estimate put the number of attackers at 30 to 40, another at more than 100. Either way, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed an undetermined number of them - the official estimate is at least a dozen - while suffering no losses themselves. About...

My Sqd Ldr came back from leave the other day. So the Sgt that was filling in as Sqd Ldr while he was away, is now back in the TC hatch, so now I am now back to being a Machine Gunner again. They asked me if I wanted to stay behind the 50 cal in the hatch and I told them, "hell no." We had an Observation Post today, in the hottest part of the afternoon. Well over 100 degrees today. We went somewhere, parked the vehicles, and dismounted. 1st Sqd, who was several hundred meters away from us,...

Today at 15:15 we had a Company Mass Formation for a Purple Heart Ceremony for the fire fight that happened several days ago. My Plt Sgt who was standing next to me when we got ambushed was one of the soldiers today to receive a purple heart, for that bullet that almost killed him that went completely through his CVC helmet. This Purple Heart Ceremony was by far the largest Purple Heart Ceremony we've had so far here in Iraq, a lot of people were getting them today, about a dozen. Most of the Purple Hearts awarded were for RPG...

Those psychopaths that attacked us the other day wearing all black were all members of Al Qaeda. Today we had a Company formation and our C.O. came out and talked to us. We told us we all did an incredible job and was proud of all of us. He said we all executed our jobs perfectly. He also informed us that the people that were wearing all black were actually insurgents from Iran, members of Al Qaeda. He said the Army estimated that there were at least 100 of them out there attacking us the other day. The C.O. also...

Now here's what really happened: I was in my room reading a book (Thin Red Line) when the mortars started coming down. Usually when we get mortared it'll only one, maybe two mortars. But this mortar attack went on for almost 20 minutes. Each one impacting the FOB every couple minutes. Something was up. My roommate ripped open the door and yelled "Get your guys, Go to the motor pool! The whole BATTALION is rolling out!" Holy s**t, the whole Battalion? This must be big. So I ran over and woke my guys up, yelled, "Get your f**kin s**t on...

This is what CNN wrote on their website about what happened yesterday here in Mosul: Mosul clashes leave 12 dead Clashes between police and insurgents in the northern city of Mosul left 12 Iraqis dead and 26 wounded, hospital and police sources said Wednesday. Rifle and rocket-propelled grenade fire as well as explosions were heard in the streets of the city. The provincial governor imposed a curfew that began at 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. EDT), and two hours later, provincial forces, police and Iraqi National Guard took control, according to Hazem Gelawi, head of the governor's press office...

Dad, I read Ben Stein's column you sent me. His last one for 'Monday Night at Morton's.' I read it with a strange mixture of pride and sadness. I'm glad he wrote it and glad that other people see that there are deeper issues in America than Monday Night Football and the Emmys. Ben Stein is brave enough to tell people they are stupid, and for that he is a refreshing, if not lonesome, voice. I've read different accounts of heroes. I've read how people twelve thousand miles from this battleground view our soldiers. These always strike me as distant...

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...