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After each exercise, brigade members discuss their performance so they can improve. The unit has been training for two years. "It's a big commitment for the soldiers, and families as well," said its commander, Col. Marc Ferraro.
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Pa.-based Stryker brigade trains for Iraq
FORT POLK, La. - Simulated bombs were going off noisily. Smoke grenades were exploding. Blank rifle shots were popping all around.
This was just a training exercise amid the pines of Louisiana, but it felt very real. And for a platoon of Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers headed to Iraq, it was about to teach a lesson.
Sgt. First Class William King jumped from the rear of an armored Stryker vehicle and started to lead his men into the woods to pick up a wounded soldier. Abruptly, an instructor shouted out, "Hey! Hey! Come back here!"
"What's this?" the instructor asked coldly, pointing to the side of the road.
King looked down and saw an artillery shell half-buried in the dirt. His shoulders sagged.
"And what's that?" the instructor asked, motioning to a spot a few feet away.
It was a second artillery round, wired to the first to make what appeared to be a powerful bomb.
"What happened?" the instructor asked.
King, 39, of Manheim, Lancaster County, looked annoyed - at himself.
"We got killed," he said.
The lesson?
Pay attention, of course.
A veteran platoon sergeant, King certainly knew that. It hurt only his pride to be reminded. "This is how you learn," he said later.
Come January, King and his men - who, overall, did quite well in the exercise - will go to Iraq for about eight months with the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team.
The 4,000-member brigade, headquartered in Northeast Philadelphia and drawn from armories across the state, will be the largest group of Pennsylvania guardsmen sent to a combat zone since World War II.
Best of equipment
The brigade is historic in other ways, too.Its commander, Col. Marc Ferraro, called it the best-equipped brigade the Army has yet sent to Iraq - not just among Guard units, but among all units. No more "hand-me-downs" from the regular Army, he said.
The brigade is equipped with 300 Strykers, the most up-to-date troop carrier the Army has. The current version has been upgraded from the Strykers first deployed to Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
Of seven Stryker brigades in the Army, only the 56th is attached to the Guard.
The unit has been training for two years. The complexity of learning all about new vehicles and new communications equipment required many soldiers to give up more than 100 days a year while struggling to stay in college or hold down a job.
