Fort Polk, Louisiana - More than 3,800 soldiers and 250 Stryker vehicles from Alaska are in Louisiana, fighting on a simulated battlefield that replicates Iraq.
Soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade are honing their skills before deploying to Iraq in August.
Fort Polk is the headquarters for the Joint Readiness Training Center. This battlefield is extremely realistic: Combine rocket-propelled grenades, suicide car bombers and Iraqi immigrants and you have a recipe for the most complicated battlefield that U.S. forces will ever encounter. [...]
The 172nd Stryker Brigade will train through the end of the May before returning to Alaska. Then they'll have a few months before deploying to Iraq in August.
Although Iraqi immigrants play the role of villagers, it's an elite group of soldiers from Fort Polk (right) that plays the role of insurgents.
Louisiana "battlefield" gets Alaska troops ready for Iraq
Link to Full Articleby Angela Unruh and Dave Steward,
Fort Polk, Louisiana - More than 3,800 soldiers and 250 Stryker vehicles from Alaska are in Louisiana, fighting on a simulated battlefield that replicates Iraq.
Soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade are honing their skills before deploying to Iraq in August.
Fort Polk is the headquarters for the Joint Readiness Training Center. This battlefield is extremely realistic: Combine rocket-propelled grenades, suicide car bombers and Iraqi immigrants and you have a recipe for the most complicated battlefield that U.S. forces will ever encounter. [...]
