HOHENFELS, Germany — More than 3,500 soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment are scouring the training area here for “insurgents” and doing bilateral meetings with Arabic-speaking role-players as part of an exercise that will prepare them for a 15-month mission to Iraq.

Joint Multinational Training Command spokesman Maj. Eric Bloom said the soldiers, who leave Vilseck for Iraq in August, will be in training area, called, “The Box,” this week and next along with 500 Arabic-speaking civilian role-players as well as soldiers from the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.

Hohenfels-based Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment and members of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police are also participating.

Second Cav deputy commander Lt. Col. Bryan Denny said the first week of the exercise involves soldiers from the Regimental Support Squadron and Headquarters Troop as well as 2nd and 3rd squadrons. Next week the two infantry squadrons will swap with 1st and 4th squadrons, which are doing gunnery training at Grafenwöhr this week.

The exercise incorporates a large number of Iraqi civilians who populate mock villages and serve as interpreters. Denny said the Iraqis provide excellent training to soldiers who will focus on bilateral meetings with locals during the Iraq mission.

“As much as we practice defeating IED (improvised explosive device) makers, we want to focus on relationships and partnering with our Iraqi forces counterparts,” he said.

On Thursday, as 2nd Squadron’s Company D soldiers delivered medical supplies to a “clinic” in the training area, they mingled easily with the Iraqis. Although the role players are supposed to speak only in Arabic, they were eager to swap jokes and ask the soldiers questions in German or English when their boss’ back was turned.

First Lt. Sean Walsh, 24, of Doylestown, Pa. — a platoon leader with Company D — said he’d already learned a lot from the Iraqis during the exercise.

“Today I had an interpreter from Mosul and the other day I had one from Tikrit,” he said. “We are able to ask them questions about the cultural norms; how can we gain the respect of people from those areas.”

Walsh, who is heading off on his first downrange mission, said he’d learned that Mosul is a meeting place for different ethnic and religious groups including Kurds, Arabs, Shiites, Sunnis and Assyrians.

“In a place like Tikrit, where it is mostly Sunni, you are dealing with different problems,” he said.

Another Company D soldier, Sgt. Jacob Rogers, 27, of Ennis, Texas, has been with the unit six years, serving with it in Mosul from 2004 to 2005 before it reflagged from 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division to 2nd Cav last year.

Rogers said the exercise teaches young soldiers a lot about tactics and ways to control situations.

“I don’t feel like I’m downrange, yet the adrenalin has been pumping a few times [during the exercise],” he said.

Rogers said he’s looking forward to going back to work with the Iraqis and ready for whatever the insurgents throw at him.

“It’s a different type of war now,” he said. “[The insurgents] have gotten a lot smarter with some of their tactics. They are using different types of explosive. But the Army is already developing counter measures to deal with those. Every time they find something new downrange they bring it to us.”

Rogers said he’s not concerned about the Stryker’s ability to cope with the more powerful explosives that insurgents have used to take out some of the vehicles recently.

“I still think the Stryker is good,” he said. “The Army can’t do too much better than the Stryker. I love that vehicle.”

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