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The war goes on

Feb-28-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

Link to Full Article (opinion)
The News-Miner

Snow falls, and winter's cold lingers. Legislators have reconvened and are debating issues of great importance to Alaska.

And half a world away, a war continues with more than 3,000 Alaska-based military personnel involved in it.

It's been some time now since the Daily News-Miner's own Margaret Friedenauer returned from several weeks embedded with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, which is based at Fort Wainwright and deep into a year's tour in Iraq. And with her return, news about the activities of the 172nd has, naturally, dropped off.

But the daily service of those soldiers goes on, and news from other media outlets covering the 172nd is coming out, continuing the story told by the News-Miner over its weeks with the 172nd in Iraq.

Kimberly Johnson of USA Today began her time with the Fort Wainwright brigade earlier this month and has been filing reports on the national newspaper's Web site. A posting from last week shows that the 172nd's personnel are far from immune to attack in their patrol zone in Mosul, one of Iraq's largest cities:

"This morning, Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Dudley found himself on the right side of luck. His Stryker armored vehicle had barely passed a buried roadside bomb on the road to the ancient city of Nimrud when it exploded, sending a shower of shrapnel and dirt on top of him and the three other men pulling 'air guard duty' in the vehicle's open hatches. [...]


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