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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...

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...

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.

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 - 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...

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 BALAD, Iraq - They got a visit from the boss, mail, a sumptuous holiday meal, and, at the end of a long and already eventful day, a mortar attack on their base camp. It was a memorable Christmas for the Stryker brigade's 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment. The regiment is the brigade's neglected step-child, temporarily loaned out to the 4th Infantry Division to cover a 1,000-square mile area west of the Tigris River around Balad. While the rest of the brigade is east of the river sweeping Samarra, the Patriots, as the regiment is known, has been working to...

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...

AT THE STRYKER BRIGADE'S BASE CAMP, Iraq - It's been a rough couple of evenings for Maj. Sean McKenney at the Stryker brigade's nightly battle update briefings. That's where the brigade staff and battalion commanders gather to update the boss, Col. Mike Rounds, on the day's developments in every area of the unit's operations. McKenney is the S-4, the logistics officer, and the past two nights Rounds has expressed a great deal of interest in his work. He's got questions about the latrines and the cots, or shortages thereof. The water. Hot chow. Clean clothes. Gravel for work areas and...

NORTH OF BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nobody shot at them or tried to blow them up, and everyone arrived in one piece. The Stryker brigade's first series of convoys, the advance party, made it safely to their destination in northern Iraq after another long ride Thursday. Much larger numbers were to arrive today and later until most of the Fort Lewis brigade's 5,000 or so soldiers get here to make the base one of the largest cities in this area. For security reasons, the Army will not allow The News Tribune to report the location of the camp or the brigade's...

NEAR DIWANIYAH, Iraq - The Stryker brigade rolled into Iraq on Wednesday and brought along the Fort Lewis weather. It rained all morning on the five convoys pushing north across the border, making it a cold, nasty ride, especially for the soldiers riding in open Humvees. "I just want everyone to make it there safe," Spc. Victoria Wright said before her convoy pushed off about 4 a.m. at the Kuwait-Iraq border. She got her wish. When they arrived some 250 miles later at an Army camp south of Baghdad, nobody had been shot at and nobody had been hurt. Many...

A Stryker brigade soldier allegedly raped in Kuwait told her mother Tuesday she's been isolated from her unit and denied counseling and other emotional support, including a visit from an Army chaplain. Barbara Wharton said her daughter, who reported being attacked outside a shower facility at Camp Udairi late Friday or early Saturday, "is having a difficult time right now. She's traumatized." Camp Udairi is where the Fort Lewis-based brigade has been staging the last few weeks before advancing into Iraq. Wharton, who lives in Lancaster County, Penn., said she spoke to her daughter by phone for about 15 minutes...

CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait -- A female Stryker brigade soldier reported she was raped late Friday or early Saturday at this desert post about 10 miles south of the Iraqi border, brigade officials said Saturday. Detectives with the Army's Criminal Investigation Division taped off the area around a cargo container next to the shower trailer where the alleged assault occurred. "A 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division female soldier has allegedly been sexually assaulted at Camp Udairi. The soldier is being provided with medical care and emotional support," spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph Piek said in a statement. "The incident is under investigation,"...

CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait - It won't be long before Pfc. Eddie Love will be doing the most dangerous job in Iraq. The 22-year-old driver from Federal Way and his buddies with the Stryker brigade's distribution company will run convoys on supply routes, where U.S. troops are most vulnerable to ambushes, roadside bombs, land mines and accidents. U.S. forces at first weren't completely prepared for this kind of war, where there are no front lines and support troops are as likely to have to fight as the infantry. The story of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and the ill-fated 507th Maintenance Company is...

CAMP UDAIRI, Kuwait - The Stryker brigade has landed in Kuwait. The last of its 5,000 soldiers were to arrive today, completing a six-day airlift out of McChord Air Force Base and the largest movement of Fort Lewis combat troops since the Vietnam War. They've been showing up day and night at this desert post about 10 miles south of the Iraqi border. They'll spend the next few weeks gathering up all their gear and vehicles before they move up for their yearlong assignment in Iraq. This marks the first deployment of the brigade, and the first battle test for...

PORT OF KUWAIT, Kuwait (Army News Service, Nov. 12, 2003) -- For the first time since World War I, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has deployed overseas. The brigade’s Stryker vehicles and other equipment arrived Nov. 12 in the port of Kuwait on board the USNS Shughart and USNS Sisler after a three-week voyage from Fort Lewis, Wash., via the Port of Tacoma. The deployment marks the second time that Stryker vehicles have landed on foreign soil though. In August a platoon from the Army’s first Stryker Brigade Combat team conducted a capabilities demonstration in South Korea. Also on...

In a few weeks, Fort Lewis will see the largest deployment of a combat unit since Vietnam. The Army's first Stryker brigade is about to leave three years of incubation at Fort Lewis for its real-world debut in Iraq. The 3,600 soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division are scheduled to move out later this month and in early November. They'll pioneer a new armored vehicle and a new way of operating that represents the Army's first steps toward transforming itself into a more mobile, technology-driven fighting force. Observers from around the world will watch closely to see if...