For Army, it's Operation Stretch

For his part, Roth admits he was "clueless" about the skills of the infantry and sniper teams he now leads. In August, he spent two hours grilling a trainer on the fine points of using a four-man team to storm rooms.

One of the most radical - and criticized - innovations within the Army's new brigades is an umbrella unit called the Brigade Troops Battalion (BTB) in which a diverse group of soldiers - including military intelligence, police, and explosive ordinance disposal teams - are led by engineers. BTB executive officer Maj. David Hurley says he's still learning to "speak the language" of soldiers in the unit, while also fixing bugs in a new Army satellite communications system that the 3ID is the first to field.

With only a few weeks before deployment, Major Hurley's main hope is "to find out where the system breaks down" in the backwoods of Fort Polk - rather than on the battlefields of Iraq.

* * *

Pvt. Frank "Doc" Lenar pulls on his helmet and sits in the back of a Humvee, waiting to head out on another infantry training mission. Fresh from boot camp, the Fort Worth, Texas, enlistee still can't believe he's in the mud with GIs instead of working as a medic in a hospital, which his recruiter promised last October.

As the 3ID expands by 3,300 troops, it has filled out its ranks with a large influx of young soldiers like Private Lenar who arrived straight from basic training - and often not by choice. They call 3ID "the black hole."

"The Army turned the faucet on us so any infantryman going anywhere [went to 3ID]," says personnel officer Capt. Stephen Gifford. The result is a major leadership challenge in some new units such as Alpha Company of 4-64, which is composed of 30 percent untried recruits.

"I'm the only one in the company with a 3ID combat patch," says the commander, Capt. Steve Wood, a 12-year Army veteran from Woodbridge, Va. Started in May, the company gained 20 to 30 men a day until it reached 170. Experience was not all the troops lacked: Initially they had "no weapons, no vehicles, and no place to train," Captain Gifford says.

The novice force is aggressive and benefits from "no bad habits," Captain Wood quips, and it is sponging up lessons for Iraq. Indeed, some in Alpha Company chose 3ID. "I want to serve my country at a time of need," says Pfc. Ryan Castle from Frederick, Md. "Plus," he says with a grin, "you get to play with a lot of cool toys and go on helicopters."

Yet such boyishness makes veterans like Wood wince as they remember their own naiveté.

"There's a perception in the movies, and I fell victim to it," he recalls, his face dusty and hair matted with sweat from a 15-hour day. "There's an idea that war is full of glory, and then you see your first casualty, and your first medevac, and your first experience with the carnage smacks you in the face.... It's a horrible thing."

* * *

The soldiers approach chaplain Lt. Lee Harms quietly, but once they begin to talk, the words cascade, often for hours.

As they pack their duffels for Iraq a second time, some soldiers are still struggling to cope with nightmares, flashbacks, and anxiety from their last ordeal at war.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4