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Stryker soldiers get battlefield, cultural training

May-28-2005 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

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By MARGARET FRIEDENAUER, The News-Miner

Patrolling an Iraqi village whose residents were wary of U.S. troops, 1st Lt. Jeremiah Ellis approached a group of villagers and with a few words of Arabic and the help of a translator started a conversation.

The villagers were impressed with the Stryker Brigade member's Arabic and even more so with his penmanship of the language, which values elaborate and elegant script. He wrote "May your hand be blessed" on the hand of one of the villagers.

"I told them I wanted them to be blessed and have a hand in taking control of their Iraq," Ellis said.

Ellis is practicing walking a fine line in Iraq's culturally complex battlefield. He has a military objective to stabilize the country, but must also bridge a cultural gap so that his peace efforts don't offend his hosts.

The U.S. military has made cultural training for troops nearly as important as firearms and battlefield training. Most military personnel consider the Joint Forces Training Center at Fort Polk in central Louisiana the premier training facility for troops preparing to deploy to Iraq.

Ellis, along with the rest of the 3,800-member 172 Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Forts Wainwright and Richardson spent the month of May at JRTC in preparation for deployment this fall. There, soldiers trained for the cultural and military challenges they will face. [...]

A day after Ellis' exchange in Al Dukar, troops at Operating Forward Base Anvil were tense with anticipation. Capt. Michael Spinello was planning a search mission in the nearby village of Wadi Al Tarif.

Company C's objective was to secure the village and reduce insurgent activity enough to turn control over to Iraqi forces. Spinello explained that the villagers had an alliance with coalition forces but were being threatened by insurgents hunkered down in Wadi Al Tarif.

"They feel paralyzed," he said. "(The mayor's) heart is in the right place and he has all the right intentions for his village."

By late afternoon, the convoy of Stryker vehicles began heading out of the base. Even though it was only a practice run, Spinello followed guidelines for releasing information: no exact number of vehicles or soldiers used in the exercise will be released, nor will any numbers of casualties or deaths.

After a nearly two-hour ride, Spinello's Stryker came to a halt outside the village. While the steel cocoon of the vehicle allows no window on the world, the muffled sounds of gunshots could be heard. Spinello, a two-time veteran of JRTC training, waited for a series of code words to let him know other units had completed specific tasks to secure the village.[...]

After training wrapped up, Spinello, his company and the entire 172nd were treated with showers, air conditioning and a plane trip home to Fairbanks or Anchorage. Their Stryker vehicles and equipment are en route to Beaumont, Texas, where they will be shipped to Kuwait to await the brigade's arrival in August. There, troops will begin their complex mission in the real Iraq, a task Spinello said his soldiers are up to.

"We're asking more of our soldiers today than I think we've ever asked and there's more at stake," he said. "I couldn't be more proud of our guys. They're doing a superb job. And it's hard."


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