Stryker Brigade News

The Army vice chief of staff also slapped a lot of backs, passed out dozens of his keepsake coins, and promoted, re-enlisted and pinned medals on dozens more soldiers in a day that began with an early-morning transcontinental flight from Washington, D.C., and ended well past 6:30 p.m. Pacific time.

His agenda, here and at other posts he’s visiting this week: bucking up an Army that’s hanging tough despite nearly five years of sustained combat operations.

“I’m focusing on retaining this all-volunteer force … to include the family members, because they’re volunteers,” Cody said Monday evening, “and letting them know we’re going to take care of them.”

Even the youngest family members. Among those receiving coins Monday was a 2-year-old who, as if by magic, Cody coaxed to stop crying for her daddy’s re-enlistment ceremony, and an outgoing little guy who laughed hard at all the vice chief’s jokes.

Some of the issues he heard Monday he indicated he would take care of with a wave of his proverbial four-star wand.

For instance, a master sergeant with 37 years of service said he couldn’t get straight answers as he faces life after the Army with a disabling disease. A woman wanted to know how it could be that her husband had gone from Iraq to Korea and then to school and then back to Iraq, with only a few brief months at home in between stops.

To some others, he had to take his lumps and explain why he thought things would get better.

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