This story originally ran in the Sept. 19, 2004, issue of the News-Miner.
At precisely 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 7, the sound of morning prayers in the village of Wadi Al Tarif was interrupted by gunfire as soldiers from the U.S. Army’s A Co., 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry launched a raid. Wheeled Stryker vehicles emerged from the bushes surrounding the small scattering of buildings riddled with bullet holes.
In the air, an A-10 Warthog joined in the fight, flying about 500 feet above the battlefield and drowning out all other sound.
The mission: To capture two suspected terrorists hiding in Wadi Al Tarif.
The result: After 45 minutes of fighting, mission accomplished.
But the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s first training mission–actually played out in Alaska at the Donnelly Training Area near Delta Junction–didn’t come without its bumps, bruises, more than a dozen trips to the hospital and a handful of imaginary casualties over a three-week period.
With tensions high around the world, September’s training missions were much more than war games. In a short period of time, the 1,500 men and women who participated in the exercises–more than a third of all Stryker personnel stationed in Alaska–could be facing a real firefight in Iraq, Afghanistan or some other destination yet to emerge.
The Stryker Brigade is the first incarnation of the military’s transformation from the slower, heavier military of the Cold War to a lighter, lethal Army of the future. But the transformation takes time.
Like training camp for football teams, the 21-day exercise at Donnelly was designed to build a team whose goal is much more important than touchdowns and titles. The hope was that training in Alaska will save lives in the years to come.
“This is the first time any of these soldiers have gone through this type of scenario,” said 1st Lt. Jeremiah Ellis, a 24-year-old infantry platoon leader with the 1-17. “It seemed like things were out of control a few times.”
In the past, Army soldiers flocked to Alaska because of its bountiful hunting and fishing opportunities.
Now a stint with the 172nd means being an intricate part in the Army’s new way of fighting, working with cutting-edge technology and the possibility of the largest deployment for U.S. Army Alaska’s troops since the Vietnam War.
“It went from the hunting and fishing brigade to a front-line Stryker Brigade,” said Ellis, who is fulfilling a boyhood dream of being in the Army.
Thaka–a villager played by Pfc. Michelle Anderson with a scarf wrapped around her head–was at a fog-covered pond fetching water when the appearance of eight soldiers on the outskirts of the village signaled the beginning of carefully planned operations during the Sept. 7 exercise.
The silence was broken only when the squad leader murmured into the radio or whistled to one of his soldiers to get his attention.
On a nearby hill, Maj. Mitch Rambin, the personnel officer for the 172nd, sat in a Humvee and watched as instant messages popped up on the computer screen attached to the dashboard, telling him where the troops were positioning themselves throughout the village and feeding him intelligence updates.
Ellis led the main part of the raid to capture one of the suspected terrorists hiding inside a two-story building. In the script, his group would enter the building, then retreat after sustaining four casualties.
Soldiers were told to expect an unwelcome response from other soldiers role-playing as villagers. Ellis’ group got just that when the exercise veered off in an unexpected direction–one of eight scenario changes meant to meant to simulate the chaos and unpredictability of combat.
Once inside, Ellis’ group was attacked by two men who sat on the upper floor with a machine gun pointed through a small hole in the sandbag lined floor. Imaginary bullets rained down on Ellis’ platoon.
Not only was the platoon pinned down but no one wanted to leave 11 fallen comrades behind. About 30 minutes later, two Stryker vehicles moved in–one to fire a 50-caliber gun to neutralize attackers on the second floor and the other to retrieve the dead and wounded soldiers.
The A-10 returned and simulated bombing the enemy’s getaway vehicle and two of the village’s buildings. Soldiers from another platoon collected DNA from the now-destroyed vehicle and positively identified one of the dead men as a terrorist before moving on to raid another location where a suspected terrorist cell was beginning to form.
All of this happened in 45 minutes.
The exercise was supposed to simulate a battle for the 1,500 participants. But there are some aspects that can’t be replicated.
Ellis said the 1-17’s commander, Col. Al Kelly, brought another degree of reality when he read to the group the letter he would have to send to family members if they were killed in battle.
“When he put it like that, within my own unit, we started taking it seriously,” Ellis said. “It went from just role-playing. … It became more real.”
To men and women in the brigade, it’s not a matter of if but when they’ll be deployed. The location that is most often named is Iraq.
The Stryker transition in Alaska is scheduled to be complete by May.