From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

The Test of Combat
November 2003–November 2004
The brigade entered combat under circumstances far different from
those American units experienced from March to May 2003, during the
early phases of Operation IraqI Freedom. Although President George
W. Bush publicly announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq
during a 1 May visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln, peace had not returned
to that country. Instead, attacks directed at U.S. and coalition soldiers
and Iraqi civilians were slowly increasing in certain areas. Mounting
evidence indicated that Ba’ath party loyalists, religious radicals, Iraqis
angered by the presence of foreign soldiers in their country, unemployed
military personnel, and foreign terrorist groups were organizing resistance.
Complicating matters, some of the violence involved conflicts
between religious groups indigenous to Iraq, particularly between Sunni
and Shi’a Muslims over grievances centuries old. The combination
of volatile religious, political, and military factors would result in the
Stryker Brigade’s becoming embroiled in numerous combat operations
over the coming year.
In some respects Iraq was an ideal proving ground for the new unit.
If its extensive system of paved roads supported the employment of
wheeled armored vehicles, its mostly arid terrain also facilitated off-road
movement. Meanwhile, with skies cloudless for most of the year, the
rainy season confined to a brief period during the winter, and sandstorms
limited to early spring, it provided an excellent setting for unmanned
aerial vehicles, close air support, and helicopters.
Capt. Eric P. McAllister’s Troop C, 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry,
led the brigade into Iraq on 3 December 2003. As the unit crossed the
Kuwaiti border and headed toward the city of Mosul, 720 miles away in
northern Iraq, battalion-level advance parties and other brigade elements
accompanied it. The initial portion of the trek ran smoothly across Iraq’s
western desert. Following unpaved secondary roads, the unit halted only
for an overnight stay at a convoy support center. Circumstances were
much different two days later, when the main body of the brigade set
out along the same course. Heavy rains rendered the roads impassible. A
number of convoys detoured east by way of a longer route that crossed
a more heavily populated region.
While many an American unit had made the same dusty trip over
the previous nine months, even the most casual observer could see that
something was different about these convoys. The huge equipment
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