Free Republic

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...

As their 19-ton armored Stryker tipped nose-first, then plummeted off a 30-foot cliff in Iraq, "I knew it was going to hurt -- a lot," Army Spc. Nick Vernon wrote. "That's when I grabbed Justin." In an e-mail he sent Monday to The Daily News, the Castle Rock native was modest about his role in pulling Sgt. Justin Little of Longview to safety. "I don't feel like I saved his life," he wrote. "We are all trained, and trained well. I did my job and everyone made it out alive." Vernon said that the six-man Stryker crew was in the...

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...

A local soldier is recovering in a German military hospital after he broke his neck while on duty in Iraq. Sergeant Justin Little, 24, was on night patrol Wednesday in Mosul, Iraq when the Stryker vehicle he was in went over a 30-foot embankment. Thursday night Little's family in Longview learned that even though his neck is broken, he will not end up paralyzed. Friday Little's two sisters got to speak with him in Germany for the first time in weeks. "Our soldiers need to know no matter where they are or where they're from, we're all proud of them,"...

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"...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq — When Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Summers arrived last fall, the Army knew he’d be able save lives. The 7th Transportation Battalion asked the ship hull technician to attach makeshift steel plates to trucks and Humvees. Poorly protected vehicles had been coming under fire every time they left this central logisitics hub for points all over Iraq. Many of the vehicles did not have the extra protection of “armor-up” kits. And the Army didn’t have enough to go around. “I’m a welder by trade,” said Summers, a 33-year-old Naval reservist from Frisco, Calif. “When I got...

by Sgt. Jeremiah Johnson May 21, 2004 A Soldier provides security with a 50 caliber machine gun in Mosul, Iraq. He is assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division’s Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, Stryker Brigade Combat Team. This photo appeared on www.army.mil.

While the dramas in Fallujah and Najaf come to a conclusion, the Army's soldiers are still riding the roads of Iraq in inferior armored vehicles while the better-protected armored personnel carriers are waiting for them in Kuwait. We're asking our troops to perform a job with the wrong tools, a mistake rooted in the 1999 decision by President Clinton's Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to take the Army off tracks and put it on wheels. When, in July 2003, acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane laid out the overall Army plan to rotate the units stationed in...

When Spc. Michael Merila was killed in Iraq in February, relatives and friends of Stryker brigade soldiers grieved online. One message in particular stood out. "During the long few months he's been deployed, I've already experienced 2 near misses and it never gets any easier trying to relax," wrote a young woman who called herself JakesKatie. She went on to offer heartfelt condolences to those who weren't so fortunate: "Although we cannot physically hold them in our arms, they will forever be held in our hearts. They are resting, out of harms way. May peace be with your souls, and...

<p>Most know the soldiers from 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (SBCT) as the Army’s first Stryker Brigade Combat Team. But in some parts of Iraq, they’re known as the “Ghost Soldiers.”</p> <p>That’s what came out of reporters round-table meeting at the Pentagon Monday, where Army acquisitions officials praised the performance of the first Stryker brigade in Iraq.</p>

After four months in Iraq, the Stryker brigade up in Mosul lost its first Stryker armored vehicle to an RPG attack on March 28th. Two RPGs were fired at the vehicle and one got past the Slat Armor. The vehicle caught fire and was destroyed. None of the crew were hurt. Only the driver was aboard, and he got out. The rest of the crew (an infantry squad) were on foot patrol at the time. About half a dozen RPG rounds have previously been fired at the brigades 309 Strykers, only causing minor damage. Two Strykers were damaged when hit...

HAMAM AL ALIL, Iraq — Two weeks after Pvt. Seth Tribble was wounded by a grenade in the northern Iraqi town of Gab Adr, his buddies went back to send a message to his attackers. The 2nd Infantry Division’s Company B, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment marched into Gab Adr on Sunday along the newly named Phase Line Tribble, which runs past the place where the grenade attack occurred. Soldiers raided several nearby houses searching for weapons and terrorists, but there was no all-out attack by anti-coalition forces that informants had warned would happen the next time Company B entered...

MOSUL, IRAQ (Feb. 20, 2004) - With the help of a concerned citizen, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment under the operational control of Task Force Olympia, took explosives and an arms dealer off the streets of a small village outside of Qarrayah Feb. 19. Company A responded to a tip from an informant who came to battalion headquarters and reported the presence of mortars in the village and identified a weapons dealer who was responsible for selling them. "We had intelligence from the battalion level that a source knew of a man trafficking arms and could take us there," said...

MOSUL, Iraq - For a while, Capt. A.J. Newtson considered removing the slat armor cages from his company's Stryker infantry carriers. The big steel cages make it tough to maneuver the vehicles through some of Mosul's narrow streets. Then two of his trucks got hit by rocket-propelled grenades. "We're going to keep it," said Newtson, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment's Charger Company. The cages, so far, are working as advertised. Strykers have come through four RPG hits with no major damage. One soldier was injured - a small shrapnel cut on his face. Soldiers on board say...

MOSUL, Iraq - A Stryker brigade soldier was killed and another wounded Monday when their Humvee struck a roadside bomb, brigade officials said. The incident near Tall Afar, about 35 miles west of Mosul, marked the first death of a Stryker soldier as a result of hostile action since the Fort Lewis brigade arrived in Iraq nearly three months ago. Eight others have been killed in accidents. The attack was one of two roadside bombings carried out against Stryker troops Monday. In the other, about 9:45 a.m. near a village southeast of Mosul, the explosion caused no injuries and minor...

February 9, 2004 Release Number: 04-02-14 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE STRYKER BRIGADE DETAINS SUSPECTS, COLLECTS WEAPONS MOSUL, Iraq – Soldiers from 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) under the operational control of Task Force Olympia detained personnel suspected of anti-Coalition activities and recovered weapons and other explosives in northern Iraq Sunday. One person suspected of anti-Coalition activities turned himself in to 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment headquarters in Mosul. Members of the Coalition for Iraqi Unity, a concerned group of citizens in northwestern Iraq, came to the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment and turned in 750 rounds of...

MOSUL, Iraq - The lifeblood of northern Iraq flows through a muddy truck yard north of Mosul that U.S. forces call Linkup Point Foxtrot. Six hundred to 800 fuel trucks laden with gasoline, diesel, kerosene and propane roll in from Turkey each morning for delivery to gas stations and depots across Nineveh, Dohuk and Irbil provinces. At Foxtrot, Stryker troops and Iraqi fuel company representatives sort out the trucks by destination and send them on their way. The operation is complicated by black market activity, profiteering, ethnic tensions, the constant threat of roadside bombs and ambushes, and garden variety crime....

MOSUL, Iraq - The Army's new Stryker vehicle had its first combat encounter with a rocket-propelled grenade Friday. The round struck the front of the vehicle above its slat armor cage, cutting a hose inside the engine compartment. The vehicle commander suffered a superficial cut near his nose, officials said. But the Fort Lewis crew was otherwise unhurt and drove the vehicle out of danger, their company commander and 1st sergeant said. It was one of four RPG attacks on Strykers on Friday in Mosul. The other three rounds missed. Soldiers throughout the brigade had figured it was only a...

MOSUL, Iraq - Three Stryker brigade soldiers and at least two Iraqi policemen remain unaccounted for today after a tragic sequence of events Sunday along the Tigris River. The search will continue today for a Stryker soldier lost when the Iraqi police boat he was aboard capsized and for two pilots attached to the brigade whose helicopter crashed while they were looking for the missing soldier. Two Iraqi policemen who were on the boat also are missing, and a third drowned. Later Sunday, a policeman was killed and another wounded, most likely by Stryker troops who opened fire on a...

MOSUL, Iraq - Three Stryker brigade soldiers were injured when insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as their convoy rolled down a highway Wednesday morning. One soldier was hit in the abdomen by shrapnel and was reported in satisfactory condition after surgery at an Army field hospital. His wounds were not considered life-threatening, but he will require further surgery after he's flown home to the United States, brigade officials said. The other two suffered minor injuries and were returned to duty after treatment. The soldiers are from B Battery of the 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment. The attack was the...

MOSUL, Iraq - They're turning the mail back on now that the Stryker brigade is in Mosul. The troops from Fort Lewis living on the Mosul palace grounds got hundreds of packages delivered Wednesday, with many hundreds more on the way over the next few days. And soldiers still waiting to head north from Camp Pacesetter are getting their first delivery there in a couple of weeks. Regular service at the base camp near Duluyiah was shut off for the brigade's move to Mosul. Some of the postmarks on boxes delivered Wednesday were as old as Dec. 4, but it...

MOSUL, Iraq - It looks nothing like the land of milk and honey. For a few weeks now, Stryker brigade soldiers have been hearing how great it would be for them once they left the windy, muddy, dreary Camp Pacesetter for their permanent home in Mosul. Quarters with heat. Hot, tasty chow. Hotter showers, every day. All that might eventually come true, but when the first major chunk of the brigade finally arrived in Iraq's third-largest city Saturday, they found the streets weren't quite paved with gold. They pulled into one of their new forward operating bases, called Glory, to...

CAMP PACESETTER, Iraq - With a month of combat operations under its belt, the Stryker brigade is moving on to its next mission: Mosul. The Fort Lewis-based brigade will relieve the 101st Airborne Division, which has been restoring order and public services in Iraq's third-largest city and the surrounding areas since April. The 101st has been doing the job with some 25,000 U.S. troops; the Stryker brigade brings just over 5,000. But it won't be the brigade's mission to do the same work as a force five times its size. Just the opposite: Stryker troops will be trying every day...

CAMP PACESETTER, Iraq – With a month of combat operations under its belt, the Stryker brigade is moving onto its next mission: Mosul. The Fort Lewis-based brigade will relieve the 101st Airborne Division, which has been restoring order and public services in Iraq's third-largest city and the surrounding areas since April. The 101st has been doing the job with some 25,000 U.S. troops; the Stryker brigade brings just over 5,000. But it won't be the brigade's mission to do the same work as a force five times its size. Just the opposite: Stryker troops will be trying every day to...

<p>The military has begun a rotation of forces in Iraq and Afghanistan that amounts to the largest movement of American troops in decades, Army officials said Thursday.</p> <p>The changes present an enormous logistics challenge not only for the Army and Marine Corps, but also for the Air Force and Navy, whose planes and ships are ferrying the troops to and from Iraq.</p>

NEAR DULUIYAH -- They do jumping jacks, push-pits and sit-ups every morning. Then there's the guys practicing Brazilian ju-jitsu. This, for sure, is the active-duty Army. I am now with the Stryker brigade (3rd Brigade, 2nd Division) from Fort Lewis. In December, some 5,000 soldiers attached to the brigade made their way from Kuwait to a location that -- due to security concerns -- cannot be reported. But you know you have arrived when you come upon row after row of big white tents and hundreds of eight-wheeled, green fighting vehicles lined up across a flat, treeless expanse of land....

CAMP PACESETTER, Iraq - Spc. Christopher Byers got a 21st birthday "present" he'll never forget: an explosion directly under his backside. Soldiers with Company A of the Fifth Battalion, 20th Infantry, patrol the town of Samarra, Iraq, on Dec. 23. Their Stryker vehicle is at right. The Stryker driver was ferrying his squad to a raid in Samarra when a bomb buried in the road blew up beneath his driver's compartment. It demolished the left front wheel and filled the vehicle with dirt and debris, but no one was seriously hurt and the vehicle was still drivable. "It was like...

CAMP PACESETTER, Iraq - When he heard the attack helicopters were landing just outside, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Joe Peveto thought he might be in for a New Year's Eve treat. His kid brother David flies AH-64 Apache Longbows. And seeing as how there's not that many of them in this part of Iraq, he figured the odds were good that David was at the controls. The two Army warrants had seen each other just 10 days earlier near Tikrit - their first meeting in seven months. A visit Wednesday would be a bonus. But this was not to be...

NEAR DULUIYAH, Iraq - Christmas has come and gone, but any Stryker brigade soldier will tell you that any day is a good day for a care package. But what's in the perfect care package? Soldiers typically tick off a list of personal hygiene stuff - baby wipes, shampoo, toothpaste, foot powder, nice soap, and razors, electric and otherwise. But such items are often easy to find over here. Then there are the snacks - everybody's got their favorite. "What about those Oreos you can only get at Christmas?" said Spc. Jashia Davis. "And a big box full of Twix...

SAMARRA, Iraq, Dec. 24 — The United States Army is betting much of its future on the success of an unlikely new warrior: an ungainly 19-ton wheeled combat vehicle wrapped in a steel-grilled hoop skirt.

<p>SAMARRA, Iraq — The soldiers scramble from the vehicles as the ramps lower to the dusty ground with a metallic thud.</p> <p>It’s just after 2 a.m., but the possibility of sudden death runs 24 hours a day here in the core of the Sunni Triangle.</p>

<p>SAMARRA, Iraq — They’ll probably never write a holiday carol about how Sgt. Raymond Soto’s platoon passed the hours waiting for Christmas morning. The Christmas Eve presence patrol through the city started quietly enough — then someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade at Soto’s Stryker infantry carrier.</p>

NEAR DULUIYAH, Iraq - The Stryker brigade made its biggest weapons seizure yet after an informant led troops to a cache east of Samarra, officials said Wednesday. They also raided a Tigris River waterfront compound thought to be a center for recruiting guerrillas to fight U.S. forces and the Iraqi interim government. Saddam Hussein was reportedly carrying documents linking him to this organization at the time of his capture earlier this month. The actions came as the Fort Lewis-based brigade completed the first week of Operation Arrowhead Blizzard, a joint effort with the 4th Infantry Division to put down the...

MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune NEAR DULUIYAH, Iraq - Troopers from the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment are back to working a more traditional role after a week working the checkpoints outside Samarra, Iraq. The squadron is the eyes and ears of the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade, typically conducting reconnaissance - finding the bad guys - and then directing the infantry to the attack. Since a Sunday morning rocket attack on Camp Pacesetter, the base camp for the brigade, the squadron has been patrolling the wide-open areas around the base. But out on the checkpoints they pretty much were stationary...

SAMARRA, Iraq - Hundreds of Stryker brigade troops swarmed into the Tigris River city of Samarra early today in a major operation to shut down persistent anti-coalition attacks. In a series of raids beginning about 2 a.m., soldiers from two Stryker infantry battalions swept into the city in search of several men thought to be organizing the Iraqi insurgency. By morning, the brigade had detained at least a dozen prisoners and confiscated numerous weapons. They also shot and seriously wounded an Iraqi man during the raid. He was taken to the Stryker base camp about 25 miles away for treatment....

NEAR DULUIYAH, Iraq - Stryker brigade soldiers killed 11 Iraqi fighters who ambushed them Monday with small-arms fire, an improvised bomb, mortars and a rocket-propelled grenade, brigade officials said. No brigade soldiers were hurt in the 45-minute firefight, which started just as school was letting out in an urban area several miles from the Stryker base camp. It was the first sustained fighting for the troops from Fort Lewis since they arrived in Iraq 10 days ago. Also Monday, brigade infantrymen found what are believed to be two medium-range surface-to-surface missiles in a remote desert culvert. They went to the...

AT THE STRYKER BRIGADE BASE CAMP, Iraq - A group of Fort Lewis soldiers survived a roadside bombing Sunday a little shaken but otherwise unharmed. The explosion sent debris flying into the windshield of Spc. Jordan Salazar's Humvee, peppering the glass with dozens of little dings. "All of a sudden it seemed like we were just covered in dirt," said Salazar, with the 864th Engineer Battalion from Fort Lewis. The battalion has been in Iraq since April with the 555th Engineer Group, operating mostly throughout northern Iraq. Salazar's convoy was on its way to ranges at the Stryker brigade's sprawling...