Stryker Brigade News

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, arrived decked out in the Army’s new pixilated sage-green-and-beige battle dress uniform. The soldiers of the Army’s 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division still wear the traditional tan camouflage pattern.

Otherwise, the general was fully in synch with leaders of Fort Lewis’ second Stryker brigade as he individually greeted them in one of Saddam’s former palaces.

Schoomaker later stepped down into a former swimming pool, which now contains the space where captains present their daily battle updates amid video screens and communications gear. [...]

ven while he was working the room, business carried on as usual for soldiers on the ground, including the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry’s discovery of a cache that contained 40 artillery rounds and four rockets. Before he left, Schoomaker made a house call on infantrymen with another battalion, the 3-21 “Gimlets.” [...]

While waiting for the general to arrive, Stryker captains and other commanders milling around the operations center joked about how they rarely get a Sunday off from a VIP visit these days. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made a trip here at Christmastime and again this spring. Sen. John Kerry passed through in January.

But the fact that powerful people are coming to Mosul is a positive development, according to the brigade’s top two leaders.

“They want to get a feeling for this area,” said Lt. Col. Emmett Schaill, the brigade’s deputy commander. “There is a spreading realization that northern Iraq is important to the success of all Iraq.” [...]