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BEYOND THE COOL RIDE

Jun-25-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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By Matt Misterek, THE NEWS TRIBUNE

It was engineered with the stealth to creep into dense urban terrain on eight wheels and go virtually unnoticed. More often, however, it barrels down the streets of Mosul with air horn bellowing, warning cars to pull over while it passes.

Indeed, with its exoskeleton of heavy green slat armor, the 21-ton Stryker vehicle at times looks like a dinosaur making a show of force in an environment where only the strongest survive.

But ask most soldiers in the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division and they’ll agree on this point: Northern Iraq will never be secured from inside the carapace of a Stryker.

No matter how thick the steel, how powerful the weapon system or how tall the sandbags outside the hatches, this war will be won or lost the way of any conflict: with boots on the ground, one house and one neighborhood at a time.

With every handshake or high-five exchanged, every stuffed animal or school notebook given away and every useful civilian tip received, coalition forces can claim a small victory. And with each broken front gate, ransacked room and terrified look on the face of a child, a mark is left on the negative side of the balance sheet.

“It always goes back to the same thing: What is the mood of the local populace? Because that is the key to the insurgency,” said Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, commander of the Stryker battalion known as Deuce Four. [...]


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