Raider Brigade unloads assets for deployment

4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division
Story by Pfc. Kimberly Hackbarth

Date: 09.02.2009
Posted: 09.27.2009 05:56
News ID: 39313
Raider Brigade unloads assets for deployment

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait — Soldiers with 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division unloaded Strykers and other military vehicles off ships Sept. 1-5 at a port in Kuwait and prepared them for the brigade's deployment to Iraq.

The ships left the United States after the brigade's rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., and arrived more than a month later at the Kuwaiti port.
Soldiers moved to Camp Arifjan from here and split into two 12-hour shifts. During both shifts, Soldiers checked the efficiency of the vehicles.

"We've got to get everything on the ground and make sure it works so the Soldiers have something to train on," said Sgt. Maj. Todd Sims, the 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment training sergeant major.

The Soldiers drove the vehicles off the ship to a deployment yard near the port.

At the yard, Third-country nationals and contractors with General Dynamics Land Systems, a contracting group from Fort Lewis retrofitted Strykers.

According to the special projects support supervisor with General Dynamics Land Systems, Michael Corrigan, the Strykers are retrofitted by attaching equipment to help protect the vehicles from improvised explosive devices.

The hull-protection kit, which is add-on armor, protects the tire area from improvised explosive devices, Corrigan said.

After the vehicles were checked and retrofitted, Soldiers ground-guided the Strykers onto flatbed trucks. A convoy led the trucks here where they will be used by 4th Bde., 2nd Inf. Div. Soldiers conducting training before heading to the brigade's final destination in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.