A Stryker combat brigade is heading to southern Afghanistan starting at the end of the month for a yearlong deployment with some of its forces staying behind.

A small crowd braved the cold and driving rain at the installation Tuesday to bid farewell to the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which is headed to overseas combat for the fourth time in seven years.

Soldiers cased the unit colors of its headquarters and three of its infantry battalions during the ceremony in front of the brigade headquarters and surrounding a memorial that honors the unit’s fallen from its three prior deployments …

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The Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier who died in a training accident this week was a 31-year-old veteran from Portland with two deployments to Iraq behind him.

Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Huntley joined the Army in 1998. He died Monday when his Stryker vehicle rolled over at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif.

Huntley was assigned to Lewis-McChord’s C Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. The brigade is carrying out drills in the California desert to demonstrate that it’s prepared for an overseas mission. The Defense Department has not released official deployment …

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5:30 PM UPDATE: “Kill team” key witness Jeremy Morlock is under cross examination tonight, and his testimony is expected to continue Tuesday at a court-martial for Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs.

Gibbs’ defense attorney is hammering Morlock on the soldier’s admittedly frequent drug use during his deployment with the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. Morlock today acknowledged that he smoked hashish at least three times a week and as much as twice a day during his deployment.

Morlock’s drug use is important because Stackhouse wants to demonstrate that Morlock is untrustworthy and has a faulty memory. Morlock has testified for about …

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The Army’s first Stryker brigade is about to become the first of its kind to go to war without the marquee infantry vehicle it helped develop a decade ago.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s 3^rd Brigade, 2^nd Infantry Division is readying for a deployment to Afghanistan in December, and it’s leaving its fleet of roughly 300 eight-wheeled Strykers at its home station.

Instead, about 3,000 soldiers from the brigade will drive a mix of armored vehicles that are already in Afghanistan, such as the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) and its all-terrain variety, the M-ATV.

Lt. Col. Wayne Brewster, the brigade’s deputy …

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Here’s some good news for the roughly 10,000 Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers serving in Stryker brigades: A new model of the eight-wheeled infantry vehicle is protecting troops better from improvised explosives in Afghanistan.

USA Today is reporting that the newly designed double-v hull has seen some success on the battlefield in deflecting some of the worst damage from bomb blasts.

“This is a case study in how to deal with a rapidly changing insurgency,” Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, told USA Today. “You can’t go through normal process. You must quickly turn around relatively …

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The memory of a Muslim soldier from Fort Lewis lives on four years after he was killed in Iraq by an improvised explosive.

President Obama today at a White House dinner honored the sacrifice of Cpl. Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, a 20-year-old soldier from the 3^rd Brigade, 2^nd Infantry Division whose death has become a symbol of sacrifices made by Muslim service members since 9/11.

“During the 10 hard years of war, our troops have served with excellence and with honor.  Some have …

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Goodbye desert, hello jungle.

Soldiers from the last combat brigade to fight in Iraq are making the rounds along the Pacific Rim this summer with a couple training exercises partnering them with militaries in Australia and Singapore.

In Singapore, a platoon from Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s 4^th Brigade, 2^nd Infantry Division last month practiced urban warfare in a hot, humid city.

Stryker soldiers told an Army writer that the exercise felt familiar because they’re accustomed to working with foreign militaries in Iraq. The main difference for them was trudging through a jungle instead of a dry desert.

“Our army …

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