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Army hails its first Strykers

Nov-23-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

Next week the 4,000 Fort Lewis soldiers of the Army’s first Stryker brigade will finally get a month of leave. After a year in Iraq, they’ve got it coming.

But first the soldiers’ families, friends and other well-wishers formally said welcome home Monday to the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. The troops returned in groups of a few hundred at a time last month and early this month.

Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the Fort Lewis commander, called the gathering a chance “not to celebrate war, but to celebrate warriors and their families.”

And though the weather was hardly summerlike, they also celebrated in the style of a Fourth of July or Labor Day family picnic – the ones the soldiers missed while overseas. A national group called Operation BBQ cooked up hundreds of pounds of meat and served it under awnings pitched between the Fort Lewis baseball and football stadiums.

Sgt. 1st Class Donald Bulen’s mom and dad, Mary and Donald Sr., came out last week from Monmouth, Ill., and will stay through Thanksgiving.

“My husband was in Vietnam and Korea. It’s hard when your husband goes to war,” Mary Bulen said. “But it’s different when it’s your son. …You can’t be there to protect him.”

Sue Shocklee came out from St. Louis to see her son, Sgt. Doug Pennington, off to Iraq last October. She was back to see him when he returned a few weeks ago, and back again Monday for the big welcome home party. “I can’t get enough of you!” she told her son.

Monday’s ceremony also began the process of closing the books on the 3rd Brigade’s mission in Iraq, although it’s one that Army leaders will probably review for some time to come.

The brigade was the first to go to war with the Army’s new Stryker wheeled infantry carriers. And it was the first to be built around a high-tech communications network that officials say gives commanders and troops better understanding of the battlefield than ever before.

The Army plans to build at least five more of the Stryker brigades. Soldiers from the second one – the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division – replaced their Fort Lewis comrades in Iraq last month.

3rd Brigade commander Col. Mike Rounds acknowledged he’s biased when asked how the Strykers performed.

“As an assessment, it went phenomenally well,” he said. The vehicle proved itself capable of protecting the troops. The brigade was as mobile as Army planners had hoped it would be.


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