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Fort’s troops get dose of Iraqi reality

Feb-27-2006 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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BY SCOTT GUTIERREZ, THE OLYMPIAN

FORT IRWIN, Calif. — The dusty streets of Medina Jabal again set the stage Sunday for another round of intense training for soldiers with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Company of the Army’s first Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

A night of mortar fire, a discovery of a weapons cache and an early-morning fire prompted about 30 soldiers to go into the area to stabilize it.

Medina Jabal is one of about a dozen mock Iraqi villages and towns built in the Mojave Desert for soldiers preparing for deployment at the Army’s National Training Center.

Unlike the first time the Stryker unit was here in 2003, when it focused much more on combat maneuvers and firepower, the week’s exercises have centered on interactions with Iraqi civilians, a vital element to the mission in Iraq.

And just like in the communities beset by an insurgency in Iraq, Medina Jabal’s residents grow frustrated when soldiers don’t maintain order or are perceived as not doing enough to fix the town’s infrastructure.

Helping soldiers train are about 250 Iraqi expatriates recruited by a Department of Defense contractor to enhance the realism of the exercises for soldiers. The Iraqis act as sheiks, imams, business owners, government officials and police officers. They speak in Arabic and try to teach the U.S. soldiers about their language and customs.


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