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Flawed Strykers still save, troops say

Apr- 2-2005 » Filed Under: Stryker Vehicle

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MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

Soldiers from two Fort Lewis Stryker brigades rushed to the defense of their 19-ton vehicles this week, reacting to broad media coverage of a leaked Army report.

The performance of the wheeled infantry carriers in Iraq was just one part of the report on lessons learned by the Army’s first Stryker brigade. The 120-page document was based on interviews conducted in the six weeks before the unit came home last fall.

But news reports this week that focused on flaws in the $2 million Strykers provoked strong responses from soldiers who spend long hours inside them.

“I have watched this vehicle save my soldiers’ lives and enable them to kill our nations’ enemies,” Lt. Col Erik Kurilla wrote in a letter to The News Tribune this week from Iraq, where he’s serving with the second Stryker Brigade.[...]

The Army report covered a wide range of strengths and weaknesses that the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division soldiers identified in all aspects of their tenure in northern Iraq – intelligence gathering, communication networks, radio systems, fixing the local economy, working with interpreters, even dealing with embedded reporters.

A recurring theme was the challenges of a 5,000-soldier brigade taking over from an Army unit four times its size – the 101st Airborne Division – in an area spanning 14,000 square miles.

The goal of the report was to identify what worked and what didn’t, and to pass along solutions identified by soldiers and commanders in the field.

“Military leaders usually acknowledge the things going right, but tend to focus more on what needs improvement so units can learn and improve their combat readiness,” according to an executive summary of the report.

It was compiled by Army researchers who visited the 3rd Brigade in Mosul in September and October.

Col. Bob Brown, who commands the Fort Lewis brigade that took over for the 3rd Brigade in October, said much the same.

“Instead of hiding our heads in the sand and saying the Stryker is perfect, that nothing’s wrong with it,” Brown said Friday from Mosul, “the purpose is to learn from mistakes and to always improve, whether it’s the vehicle, the systems, the people, whatever.”[...]


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