At Daegu Air Base in South Korea Monday, soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, help get a Stryker vehicle onto a C-17 Globemaster II transport plane for a return to the battalion’s home at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. The vehicle, which withstood 13 IED blasts in Iraq, developed a mechanical problem and thus needed the push. (Franklin Fisher / S&S)
At Daegu Air Base in South Korea Monday, soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, help get a Stryker vehicle onto a C-17 Globemaster II transport plane for a return to the battalion’s home at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. The vehicle, which withstood 13 IED blasts in Iraq, developed a mechanical problem and thus needed the push. (Franklin Fisher / S&S)
Soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, ready their Stryker vehicle for loading aboard an Air Force transport plane and a return to Fort Wainwright, Alaska. (Franklin Fisher / S&S)
Soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, prepare to board a U.S. Air Force transport plane for a return to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, after three weeks of combat training on the peninsula. (Franklin Fisher / S&S)
Soldiers board the plane for a return to Fort Wainwright, Alaska. (Franklin Fisher / S&S)
Air Force Master Sgt. Robert E. Rodarte and soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division prepare to cut a T-shirt into sections they can use to blot up some vehicle mechanical fluid during the upload of Stryker vehicles. (Franklin Fisher / S&S)
DAEGU AIR BASE, South Korea — When the troops of an Alaska-based Army Stryker unit roll out to the field, the subzero cold of their home turf often prevents them from doing more than a fraction of the training they want and need.
So when they wrapped up three weeks of combat training in South Korea on Monday, soldiers of Company C, 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment said they were more than satisfied with the chances they got to practice for combat. They’re stationed at Fort Wainwright as part of the 25th Infantry Division.
A total of 68 came to South Korea for the training. Of those, 34 departed Monday — with the rest set to leave later in the week.
South Korea’s weather, though decidedly cold, was about 60 degrees warmer than what they’re used to in Alaska, they said.
And in Alaska, they have a live-fire range but not one where Strykers can fire their machine guns at pop-up and moving targets. But in South Korea they fired at both types of targets using the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division’s Rodriquez Range Complex near Dongducheon.
Moreover, with the unit slated for another Iraq tour in September, getting to fire at moving and stationary targets, reacting to mock roadside bombs, using live ammunition and drilling in mounted and dismounted assault were just what they needed, they said.
“We got a lot more training in three weeks here than we get in Alaska in a year,” said Sgt. Jeffrey Parish, an infantry team leader assigned to an M1126 Stryker vehicle. Parish, 25, is from El Paso, Texas.
Strykers are armored combat vehicles with two-member crews and a complement of nine infantrymen inside. The vehicles get the troops to battle, where the infantry squad dismounts and engages the enemy.
“When we train in Alaska, it’s really cold,” said Parish. “It’s harsh.”
So often in training they end up sticking with tasks that can be practiced from inside the vehicles, such as using the radios, they said.
South Korea was a chance to “actually get out of the vehicles and do a full mission,” said Parish.
As a Stryker vehicle commander, Spc. Christopher Stanfield, 20, of Winchester, Ky., found the live-fire gunnery training in South Korea especially satisfying. He’s also with Company C. Part of the vehicle commander’s job is to man the Stryker’s .50-caliber machine gun.
“Most of the exercise here was to teach us gunnery,” said Stanfield. “That’s something we don’t get to do much in Alaska.”
“The Stryker’s the vehicle,” said Maj. Tim O’Brien, 1st Battalion operations officer. “The true combat power is these guys in the back who get out — dismount — and then take the fight to the enemy.”
