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"We've got to be ready for everything"

Dec- 8-2006 » Filed Under: 4/2 SBCT

By Keith Eldridge, KOMO News (video included)

FORT LEWIS - While President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair continue to talk strategy in Iraq, the troops here at home continue to train for deployment. The newest Stryker brigade realizes it has to be ready to take on whatever role the president wants them to play.

A huge training exercise is now under way, both on base at Fort Lewis and off the base as this unit gets ready to head to Iraq. But will they go in a combat role? Or as trainers of Iraqi security forces? Bush is still deciding.

In the meantime, the training is as close to the real thing as they can get. The 4th Stryker Brigade is getting ready to head to Iraq and the training is reflecting the urgency of making this as authentic as possible. That includes using Iraqi citizens who've moved to the U.S. playing the role of Iraqi citizens in the combat zone.

"This is good for training to save the soldier from any problem when they're in Iraq," said Iraqi citizen Said Shehada.

Obviously their concentration right now is on the training at hand, but they're not immune to news from the outside world -- especially out of Washington, D.C. and the report from the Iraq Study Group and what their role may be when they get to Iraq next summer. [...]

"We've got to be ready for everything," said Stryker battalion commander Lt. Col. Bill Prior. "That's part of our job. In order to train you have to be able to do and that's what we're working on right now, so I think we'll fit in nicely as trainers if that's the role that we take."


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