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No home advantage

Feb-25-2007 » Filed Under: 4/2 SBCT

MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

At Fort Irwin, Calif., and Fort Polk, La., they stand in as Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, and they dish out lumps to units coming through for exercises.

The opposing force – “opfor,” in Army-speak – is pretty tough on the road, too. Soldiers at Fort Lewis learned that this month while preparing for an early deployment to Iraq on a shortened training schedule.

With roadside and suicide bombs, snipers and other tactics straight from the streets of Baghdad, the visiting team made itself known to Fort Lewis Stryker troops.

Fort Polk soldiers “killed” more than two dozen infantrymen and “wounded” another 30 in one fight.

In another, a pair of opfor gunmen sneaked within range of a battalion commander’s Stryker vehicle and knocked it out with a mock rocket-propelled grenade.

These are tough lessons – exactly the kind Army planners hoped would be delivered in the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division’s just-completed mission rehearsal exercise.

The Pentagon moved up the Stryker brigade’s departure by a month as part of the “surge” of 21,500 U.S. troops into Iraq. But the decision came at a cost: The Army canceled the unit’s long-planned culminating exercise at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert.

Instead, planners from the other training center, at Fort Polk, put together a road show on short notice.

In just a few weeks they sent 1,300 trainers, opfor fighters, contract support workers and Arabic-speaking “cultural” role players up to Fort Lewis to put on a two-week replacement exercise.

The Army is wagering it will be as helpful for 4th Brigade’s soldiers and officers as it would have been to pack all their equipment and vehicles and head south for a month in the Mojave.

And U.S. military leaders are banking that the benefits of the Stryker troops’ arrival in Iraq a few weeks ahead of schedule will outweigh the risk that they might not be as well-prepared.

Army leaders say the brigade will be ready.[...]


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