Stryker Brigade News

Two soldiers in the "destroyed" Humvee were declared "dead," two others "wounded."

The convoy's ambulance moved in to pick up the "wounded" soldiers. When "snipers" started firing on the ambulance from hiding places alongside the road, a U.S. military truck roared up and a gunner standing in the truck's turret returned fire with a .50-caliber machine gun.

The "snipers" were "killed" and the "attack" ended.

"That wasn't too bad," said Army Maj. Dale Barnett. "They've got a few things to work on, but overall I thought they did pretty well."

No one actually was injured or killed in the "attack."

The convoy was on a training exercise at the 17,000-acre Fort Indiantown Gap National Guard Training Center in Lebanon County as the 328th Brigade Support Battalion prepares for war.

The 140 soldiers in Headquarters Company and the medical unit Company C, both based at Lancaster's Stahr Armory, do not have orders for deployment overseas, according to Capt. Cory Angell of the Gap's public affairs office.

But based on the training exercises the brigade began at the Gap June 9 and will continue with until Friday, it seems inevitable the entire 328th will be deployed by 2009, Angell said.

"The brigade will hit its initial operating capability by the end of 2008, and once they hit that point, they can be tagged for missions," Angell said.

"I think if you're a soldier in a Stryker Brigade, you see all this new equipment and you're doing all this training, you're thinking you're going to be used."

The 328th is part of the Pennsylvania National Guard's 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

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