From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

Not surprisingly, the situation within Tall Afar deteriorated further,
not only because the Americans were keeping a lower profile but also
because the insurgency was growing stronger. With coalition convoys
passing through the city taking fire on a daily basis, TF olympIa sought
the return of TF arrow in order to reestablish a significant coalition
presence. In response, the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, instituted a
series of reconnaissance and intelligence probes within the city to
identify key insurgent supporters and enemy logistical nodes. Capitalizing
on the information it gathered, the battalion began cordon and
knock operations on 1 July 2004, seizing a number of insurgents and
many components useful in the construction of remotely detonated
bombs.
The Americans’ success was marred by an incident on 14 July: a
Turkish tanker truck forced a Stryker from Company B, 5th Battalion,
20th Infantry, off a road near FOB sykes. Two Americans were killed
and nine injured when the Stryker overturned. The following day another
Stryker from Company C, 2d Battalion, 3d Infantry, suffered a similar
fate when it swerved to avoid being rammed by another Turkish fuel
truck. Although three Americans were injured in the incident, this time
no one was killed.
Late in July 2004 TF olympIa directed the Stryker Brigade to begin
planning for a series of large-scale operations within Tall Afar to keep
the insurgency off balance throughout the western portion of Ninawa
Province. The first of these efforts began on 1 August, with two companies
each from the 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry, and the 2d Battalion, 3d
Infantry, aided by two companies from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry,
and six companies from the Iraqi National Guard. Although the force
conducted a thorough sweep of Tall Afar, the operation achieved only
limited results because the enemy chose to avoid confrontation. The
situation changed dramatically several days later.
On 4 August 2004, 2d Lt. Ryan J. Nystrom’s Mobile Gun System
platoon from Company C, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, was escorting a
logistics convoy on Highway 2 between Mosul and Tall Afar. Departing
from sykes at 1000, the group included twenty-three HETS, fifteen
vehicles from the 296th Brigade Support Battalion, and several armed
trucks. When the convoy entered Mosul’s northern outskirts, its lead
element encountered a police checkpoint that significantly slowed civilian
traffic. Negotiating its way through this obstacle, it passed through a
market in the northwestern section of town, where pedestrians and heavy
traffic again forced it to slow. As the lead Stryker passed broadside to
the first alley beyond the marketplace, an antitank rocket struck it on the
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