From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

Cavalry; Company C, 52d Infantry; and Company C, 276th Engineers,
minus one platoon. The 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry’s Company A, minus
one platoon, would also remain behind. Functioning as a separate force, it
would secure the Hammam al Alil training facility while Captain Beaty’s
Company C, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, continued operations in Tall
Afar. The 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, and the 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry,
would meanwhile shift their boundaries within Mosul to cover the areas
vacated by the units joining TF arrow.
Reed’s task force would comprise elements of his own headquarters
company commanded by Capt. Tobias O. Vogt; Capt. Bart G. Hensler’s
Company A, 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry; Capt. Jeffrey C. Bryson’s Company
B, 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry; Captain Mason’s Company B, 5th Battalion,
20th Infantry; and a logistics team from the 296th Brigade Support
Battalion. These units joined Reed on 10 April at FOB regulars, thirty
miles south of Mosul near Qayyarah. Upon arrival each took position
in a convoy preparing to move south, but an intense if brief outbreak of
violence around Mosul delayed the deployment for a day.
Responding to RPG and small-arms fire that erupted during an unplanned
demonstration outside Mosul’s city hall the previous day, coalition
troops killed three insurgents. Shortly afterward, the 1st Squadron, 14th
Cavalry, detained two suspected rebels near Tall Afar and possibly killed
a third. During that same period, near Al Thubat, a Stryker patrol from the
1st Battalion, 23d Infantry, received fire from a truck carrying men armed
with RPGs. As the vehicle sped away the Americans scored a direct hit
with a wire-guided missile, killing all twelve enemy aboard. Despite the
surge in violence, the situation seemed more or less in hand by 11 April.
Assured that TF olympIa could handle any foreseeable outbreak of violence
in the near future even in the absence of its departing battalions, General
Ham gave the go-ahead for TF arrow to head south.
The force’s initial destination was FOB warhorse, 35–40 miles
northeast of Baghdad near Baqubah, where it would join Colonel Pittard’s
brigade team. Reed sent three officers ahead for initial coordination with
the colonel’s staff: his battalion operations officer, Maj. Thomas W.
O’Steen; the battalion adjutant, Capt. Curt L. Rowland, Jr.; and a representative
of the battalion operations section, Capt. Jeremy R. Smith. The
three went by helicopter to Logistics Support Area (LSA) anaconda,
sixty miles north of Baghdad near Balad, where they hitched a ride to
Pittard’s headquarters at warhorse. They arrived just in time for a briefing
on the operations order that would guide their efforts. As soon as it
concluded, Major O’Steen provided Colonel Reed with a synopsis of the
briefing via a secure satellite phone.
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