From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

decided that his cavalry unit would need additional dismounted personnel
to maintain security since the force would be working within
the city of Tall Afar. Given that the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry’s area
encompassed a fairly large but sparsely populated region, he solved
the problem by switching the unit’s Company C, under the command
of Capt. Eric D. Beaty, with Captain McAllister’s Troop C of the 1st
Squadron, 14th Cavalry.
The mission Beaty’s unit received when it arrived in Tall Afar exemplified
the scale of responsibility virtually every rifle company within the
brigade assumed. Company C had charge of a zone that measured thirty
by twenty-four miles. In addition to protecting the city’s 340,000 Arab,
Kurdish, and Turkmen inhabitants, the unit oversaw the security of six
smaller towns; numerous villages; two major international oil pipelines
and their associated processing infrastructure; the Mosul Dam, the primary
source of electricity for all of northern Iraq; the Al-Kisik Military
Compound, which was the future site of a New Iraqi Army division and
headquarters; and miles of roadways and rolling terrain linking all these
places. The company’s mission involved the provision not only of security
but also of support for local governments and reconstruction projects.
The changeover between the 101st Airborne Division and the Stryker
Brigade paralleled higher-level adjustments in the command and control
of coalition forces in northern Iraq. In December 2003 Task Force (TF)
olympIa, a special subelement of the I Corps headquarters at Fort Lewis,
had been created under the corps’ deputy commander, Brig. Gen. Carter
F. Ham. Moving to Iraq at about the same time as the Stryker Brigade,
the task force assumed the command responsibilities General Petraeus
and his staff had held.
The major subordinate elements of TF olympIa consisted of the
Stryker Brigade; the 3d Squadron, 17th Cavalry, an aviation unit temporarily
detached from the 10th Mountain Division; the 44th Corps Support
Battalion; and the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion. A number of combat
support and combat service support elements previously attached to the
101st Airborne Division (the 503d Military Police Battalion, the 1092d
Engineer Battalion, the 67th Combat Support Hospital, and the 234th
Signal Battalion) would also remain to support the task force. In addition
to the American units, General Ham also had operational control over
four Iraqi National Guard battalions; three Iraqi Border Police battalions;
and several thousand members of the Iraqi Facility Protection Security
Force, a specially trained organization under the Ministry of Interior
responsible for safeguarding Iraq’s strategic infrastructure, government
facilities, and cultural and educational sites.
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