The commander of the 56th SBCT, Col. Marc Ferraro, conducted a telephone conference with PA reporters this week to provide an update on the brigades recent activities. The Philadelphia Inquirerhas the details.
Like commanders in Iraq before him, Army Col. Marc Ferraro spoke optimistically of the new job ahead - building up the country's security forces, erecting schools and electrical lines, encouraging ties between Sunnis and Shiites.
But already the war zone's harsh realities have hit home for the leader of the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, a 4,100-member force of the Pennsylvania National Guard that arrived in January and officially took over a 900-square-mile area northwest of Baghdad on Tuesday.
In a telephone conference call with Pennsylvania reporters yesterday, Ferraro reported that in addition to having lost a soldier killed in combat, the brigade had had two men badly wounded in recent days.
The commander of the 56th SBCT, Col. Marc Ferraro, conducted a telephone conference with PA reporters this week to provide an update on the brigades recent activities. The Philadelphia Inquirerhas the details.
Like commanders in Iraq before him, Army Col. Marc Ferraro spoke optimistically of the new job ahead - building up the country's security forces, erecting schools and electrical lines, encouraging ties between Sunnis and Shiites.
But already the war zone's harsh realities have hit home for the leader of the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, a 4,100-member force of the Pennsylvania National Guard that arrived in January and officially took over a 900-square-mile area northwest of Baghdad on Tuesday.
In a telephone conference call with Pennsylvania reporters yesterday, Ferraro reported that in addition to having lost a soldier killed in combat, the brigade had had two men badly wounded in recent days.
