Fort Lewis sees growth, change

By Christian Hill | The Olympian • Published March 16, 2008

The 81st Brigade Combat Team, the Washington Army National Guard's largest combat unit, is on alert for a second deployment. It served a year in Kuwait and Iraq from 2004 to 2005.

Rick Patterson, a retired colonel who works on special projects for the Washington Military Department, said if someone had told him several years ago the brigade would have twice deployed to a major overseas conflict, "I would have just said you're crazy.

"Times have changed."

The need to constantly move equipment and people to the war zone also has increased the tempo of operations at McChord Air Force Base. It has deployed more than 7,800 airmen since the Iraq War began.

But Fort Lewis has been the most changed by the war. Since 2001, more than 35,000 of its soldiers have deployed overseas. About 180 service members assigned to the Army post have died there.

Stryker brigade excels

At the start of the war, the Stryker brigade was unproven. Five years later and after numerous combat deployments, military leaders have praised its speed and lethality in urban environments, and soldiers swear by the armor protection.

"The war in Iraq plays to the (Stryker Brigade Combat Team's) strong suit just by the nature of the warfare there," said Lt. Col. Joseph Davidson, commander of an infantry squadron assigned to the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which completed its second deployment to Iraq last year.

Lt. Gen. James Dubik, an architect of the Stryker program and former commanding general at Fort Lewis, said the Iraq War accelerated the development of the first two Stryker brigades at Fort Lewis. "The Army then saw how useful they were in the battlefield and accelerated the other four brigades and decided to form a seventh," Dubik said in a videoconference last week. He now heads the command in charge of training Iraqi security forces.

Soldier care

The care of wounded soldiers and assessment of those returning from combat also has undergone significant changes.

Last year, articles were published about shoddy living conditions and bureaucratic hurdles for many injured soldiers receiving outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the Army's flagship hospital. The reports raised questions about whether the Army was equipped to care for soldiers who survive serious wounds in Afghanistan and Iraq and require physical and emotional rehabilitation for years afterward.