Stryker Vehicles Start Long Journey To Middle East

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
May 31, 2008 By Chris Freiberg
The 1st Brigade 25th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team has begun the long process of shipping its equipment to the Mideast.
This week, the 1,100 vehicles used by the brigade, including the eight-wheeled armored Strykers from which the unit gets its name, were put on trains for the first leg of the journey. The 1-25th is scheduled to deploy to Iraq sometime this fall.
Those trains will travel through Alaska to Anchorage where the vehicles will be loaded on a ship destined for the Mojave Desert in California.
“There’s literally tons and tons of stuff they’ve got to move,” said Maj. Chris Hyde, the public affairs officer for the 1-25th.
Many soldiers have loaded the vehicles with equipment they will need in Iraq since the Stryker vehicles will not return to Alaska until the brigade’s 12-month mission is completed.
For many, this will be a return trip to Iraq. The 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, now reflagged the 1-25th, was sent to Iraq for 16 months in 2005 and 2006 as part of the largest troop deployment from Alaska since Vietnam.
During the last year, the 4,000 members of the brigade have been preparing to go to Iraq. When they go to the National Training Center in California this July, it will be something of a final test before they head into the battlefield.
While they have engaged in numerous training exercises in Alaska, Hyde says that the Arctic just can’t come close to mimicking a desert environment.
“From what I’ve seen at the NTC, it looks startlingly realistic,” he said. “The mantra there is to make it as close to the real thing as possible.”
Even mannequins used for first aid training are equipped with fake blood packets that feel and even smell like the real thing, Hyde said.
At the training center, troops also will interact with Iraqi or Arab actors so that they better understand the culture before heading overseas.
The entire operation is monitored by “observer controllers,” who act like referees, telling soldiers what they’ve done right, as well as what could have been a deadly mistake in the heat of battle.
“Everything is stepped up a whole lot more,” Hyde said.
 
Back
Top