Winds of Change.NET: The Stryker Brigade's 'Digital Ghosts'

January 14, 2004

The Stryker Brigade's 'Digital Ghosts'

by Joe Katzman at January 14, 2004 3:39 AM

In a nice follow-up to my primer on counterinsurgency in tribal societies, Trent Telenko points me to a Seattle Times series from some embedded reporters (they even have a blog). We especially liked this excerpt, which covers the Stryker Brigade's activcities in Iraq:

"The boys were living hard," said Lt. Col. William Buck James, battalion commander. "It rained about every three days. It was cold and it was muddy. They didn't quit and didn't complain, and kept up constant pressure. One of the sources who came up and started giving us targets, she called us ghosts. She said, 'We never know where you are coming from - you are everywhere and you are nowhere. You come and go as you please.'
"In my mind, that was exactly what I wanted to do."

That's a good approach in counterinsurgency situations, and the Seattle Times' articles covering Bravo Company's travails (14th Engineering Battalion) and Capt. Jim Riley's efforts in Ad Dujayl offer more useful portraits of counterinsurgency work.

UPDATE: The Seattle Times also has more information about the Stryker Brigade itself, but your best ongoing source is probably the Stryker Brigade News blog.

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