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First Strykers rumble into Vilseck

Jul-28-2006 » Filed Under: 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment

Link to Full Article (Photos included)
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes

VILSECK, Germany — Sixty battle-hardened veterans arrived here by train on Friday.

They are Stryker armored personnel carriers, the first of 300 such vehicles that will be delivered to the newly arrived 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment on three trains over the next week.

The nicks and scratches on some of the Strykers are reminders that the eight-wheeled vehicles saw combat when 2nd Cav — then of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division — deployed to Iraq from October 2004 to October 2005.

The Strykers arrived Monday in Germany after a three-week, 9,500-mile journey by sea from 2nd Cav’s old base at Fort Lewis, Wash. The soldiers who unloaded the vehicles at the Vilseck greeted them like old friends before driving them to motor pools for inspections.

The unit’s executive officer, Maj. Bryan Denny, 39, of Oxford, N.C., said the Stryker he served in while in Iraq did not arrive Friday but that he is looking forward to seeing it again.

“My Stryker was called Headquarters 33. We don’t give them names like the tank battalions do, but I love that thing and I give her a pat every time I see her,” he said as he watched other vehicles drive off the train in heavy rain.

Denny said he survived three roadside bomb hits to his Stryker in Iraq.

“Strykers are very survivable against those things. You will blow tires off but you can still roll back to base. If you are in a tank and lose a track, you are doing maintenance there on the spot,” he added.


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