Stryker Brigade News

This was reported originally in a story from a soldier in the brigade and we all thought it would be last week. I have yet to see a confirmation from ABC and Armywife did not have any additional information so I thought I would post a HeadsUp!!! for your information. Here's hoping they finally get something from all those embeds. ;-)

If anyone gets the email from Nightline confirming this, let me or Todd know and we can update this message. (I signed up for the newsletter tonight but have yet to receive anything)

I received the email this morning...
Nightline Daily E-Mail
January 2, 2004

TONIGHT'S FOCUS: They ride in a new type vehicle that was untested in combat, new equipment, new tactics. And now they face the real test...Iraq. Inside the new Stryker brigade on its first assignment.

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First of all, Happy New Year to all of you, I hope that your holidays were enjoyable and peaceful. And now, gradually at least, it's back to work. One note about last night's broadcast. For those of you who missed it, we replayed our profile of singer Eva Cassidy, who died of cancer at far too young an age. This remains probably the most popular Nightline ever. Reading the emails today, the morning after it ran, I was struck by the number of people who wrote in asking when we are going to play it again. I'm sure we will rerun it at some point in the future, but not for a while.

And now back to tonight. There has been a lot of talk about the transformation of the army. Today's military was really designed to fight the Soviets in Europe, something that is obviously never going to happen now. But in terms of firepower and heavy weapons, there's not an army in the world that can stand up to the U.S. But the world has changed. Increasingly, as we see almost every day in Iraq, the nature of conflict has changed. It's unlikely that two armies will face off across open space any time soon. The wars of the present, and the future, are more likely to be unconventional. No front lines. And that means that the military has to change too. The army has created a new vehicle, called the Stryker, to try to meet some of the demands of the new wars. The first of the Stryker units has just been deployed to Iraq, their first test by fire. ABC News correspondent Don Dahler and producer Mike Gudgell were embedded with the unit for the first couple of weeks. Tonight we'll have their account of what the new army looks like, and what it was like for the soldiers as they went into action for the first time.

There is a college football game tonight, so I'm not sure exactly what time we'll go on in the East, but hopefully there won't be too much of a delay.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
ABCNEWS Washington bureau