Stryker Brigade News

Ultimately this Stryker unit will be stationed in Vilsek, Germany, but not before returning from Mosul, Iraq, later this summer to its home base at Fort Lewis. The brigade will reset at Lewis and be reflagged the 2nd Cavalry Regiment before moving to Germany in 2006. Under the brigade stationing plan announced by the Army in late July, the unit currently organizing at Lewis as the 2nd Cavalry Regiment will be reflagged as one of three Lewis-based Stryker brigades of the 2nd Infantry Division.

The good word on Selective Re-enlistment Bonuses has made it to the combat zone, where Sgt. William Samuelson, with Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, a 1-25 unit, is going through the re-enlistment process and will net about $13,000 tax-free. The 25-year-old from Spanaway, Wash., has been in the Army for six years and is waiting to sign his final re-up paperwork.

“Even though the op tempo is really high now … it’s basically a good, secure job,” he said during an interview near Rawah, Iraq, a small town near the Syrian border. “You have to make sacrifices, but it’s worth it in the end.”

Spc. Matthew Beaudette, who, like Samuelson, is an 11B infantryman with 3-21, raised his right hand in Mosul on July 12 to sign on for four more years with the 1-25.

He knows he’ll stay with the unit all the way to Germany.

“The main reason was I really wanted to see Europe,” he said. “I’ve been to Korea. I’d like to see Germany, and it also gives me some time before I have to come back to Iraq.”

Col. Robert Brown, commander of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry division, said the 1-25th was chosen to go to Germany because it will be ready before the current 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which has just begun its conversion to Stryker.