From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

equipment caches. On the evening of 21 December, insurgent forces
responded by showering FOB paceseTTer with eleven 107-mm. rockets,
all of which hit within the confines of the camp. One exploded within
100 yards of the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry’s rear command post but
caused no casualties. Using counterbattery radar to pinpoint the enemy’s
launch site, the 155-mm. howitzers of Battery A, 1st Battalion, 37th Field
Artillery, replied with a barrage of high-explosive shells. A search of the
target area a short while later revealed that the insurgents abandoned it
so hurriedly that they left behind twenty-one unfired rockets.
As enemy activity within Samarra declined under the pressure from
the 4th Division, CJTF–7 informed General Odierno that the Stryker
Brigade would move on to Mosul. The deployment that followed began
in late December and lasted through the first week of January 2004.
Each morning, as elements of the brigade prepared to depart, groups of
vehicles lined up inside FOB paceseTTer. When a convoy moved out, a
security element preceded it to clear the road of anything that might pose
a threat. Kiowa Warriors (armed reconnaissance helicopters) from the 3d
Squadron, 17th Cavalry, flew escort. The unit completed its relocation
on 7 January without the loss of any personnel or equipment.
Task Force Olympia
When each Stryker battalion arrived in Mosul, it paired up with an
element from Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus’ 101st Airborne Division.
The ensuing shift of responsibilities resembled the one that had occurred
when the brigade had joined the 4th Division in Samarra. Reflecting the
more permanent nature of the assignment, however, the process centered
upon a deliberate “left-seat/right-seat” training arrangement. The Stryker
units first observed the troops of the 101st at work. Then they assumed
the tasks themselves while the veterans critiqued their efforts.
In areas just outside of the city, a single 800-soldier Stryker battalion
backfilled an entire 5,000-man infantry brigade from the 101st Airborne
Division. For example, in the region north and west of Mosul where
Iraq bordered Syria and Turkey, the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry, began
shadowing the 101st’s 3d Brigade Combat Team. Meanwhile, in the area
south and west of the city, the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, fell in with
the 101st’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. The wide expanse of the city’s
complex urban environment, however, required a higher concentration
of troops. There, two Stryker battalions—the 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry,
and the 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry—worked alongside the 101st’s 2d
Brigade Combat Team. One Stryker battalion assumed responsibility for
26