Soldiers with the 14th Cavalry, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division prepare backpacks on the ramp of their Stryker before children rush to collect them. (Juliana Gittler / S&S)
Soldiers with the 14th Cavalry, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division prepare backpacks on the ramp of their Stryker before children rush to collect them. (Juliana Gittler / S&S)
Maj. Brian Grady, with Company B of the 448th Civil Affairs Battalion attached to the 14th Cavalry, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, shows an Iraqi boy the contents (school supplies) of a backpack. (Juliana Gittler / S&S)
During a routine mission Saturday in northwestern Iraq, soldiers with the 14th Cavalry, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division popped into a remote school and handed out 150 backpacks and toothbrushes.
The visit was a spur-of-the-moment stop for the Stryker Brigade Combat Team members aimed at helping a school that troops haven’t visited in a year, said Maj. Brian Grady, with Company B of the 448th Civil Affairs Battalion.
Soldiers piled up backpacks filled with school supplies and warnings about unexploded ordnance on the ramps of two Strykers while soldiers and translators asked the school principal to let the children out of class to have at them.
After the mad rush for supplies and plenty of young smiles, the Strykers closed up and headed back to their mission along the Syrian border.
