Another of the U.S. Army units tapped for the Baghdad “surge” has arrived in Kuwait and begun training for its move up north of the border, officials said Wednesday.
The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division has moved into Camp Buehring, Kuwait, and begun the “initial stage” of its Iraq deployment.
Troops from the “Sledgehammer Brigade,” as the unit is known, began flying “as early as Feb. 28 and continued until the final flight on March 15 from Lawson Airfield on Fort Benning, Ga.,” officials said in a news release.
The soldiers now are involved in several training programs, including rollover drills, urban warfare exercises, updated classes on roadside bombs, and battlefield medicine training.
While this will be the fourth deployment to Iraq for the brigade, many of the troops are new to the Army and have not been downrange, officials said.
“The training was very beneficial to the soldiers,” Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Lockett, Troop A, 1st Battalion, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, was quoted as saying in a news release announcing the unit’s arrival. “A lot of these soldiers have never been out here before so they need all the training they can get.”
The brigade is one of five in the Army that have had deployments added or sped up as part of a push to get nearly 30,000 more troops on the ground in Iraq. Two of the brigades — 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne, and the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division — already have taken up positions in Baghdad.
The troop increase is an attempt to quell sectarian violence and bring more security to the capital.
