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Training stop on the way to Iraq

Feb-26-2006 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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By Scott Gutierrez, The Olympian

FORT IRWIN, Calif. — Soldiers call it “The Box” or the “Dust Bowl.”

The Army National Training Center’s 1,100 square miles in the Mojave Desert is the closest thing to Iraq that soldiers will see before deploying to the Middle East.

Soldiers from the Army’s first Stryker Brigade Combat Team are preparing here for their second trip to Iraq in June.

“We’ve been so run ragged out here. It’s actually less stressful for us in Iraq, believe it or not,” Sgt. Hans Crawford, 20, of Olympia said after awakening from a few hours of sleep atop a ridge where his unit has set up several communications towers.

The 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, was the first Stryker Brigade to be tested in combat during a yearlong deployment that began in late 2003.

The brigade’s 4,800 soldiers, who arrived at Fort Irwin earlier this month, will spend two weeks in The Box as the last major training exercise before they replace their counterparts, the 172nd Stryker Brigade of Fort Wainwright, Alaska, now serving in Iraq.

The training environment has changed since the Stryker Brigade last visited Fort Irwin before its first stint in Iraq.


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