Army’s newest combat formation ready to strike

***image1***Surface Deployment and Distribution Command Soldiers unloaded more than 300 Stryker armored vehicles from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment Stryker Brigade Combat Team with administrative assistance from 21st Theater Support Command Soldiers July 24 and 25 in Bremerhaven, Germany.

Merchant Marines shipped the Strykers to Bremerhaven from Tacoma, Wash., aboard the U.S. Navy ship Mendonca.

The vehicles were loaded July 26 onto trains for transportation to Vilseck, Germany, where the vehicles will form the core of the Army’s newest combat formation.

“This brigade brings a lighter, more deployable, more lethal capability to the warfighting capabilities of U.S. Army Europe,” said 21st TSC Commanding General Brig. Gen. Scott G. West. “In the long term this is a much more flexible, much more agile formation than Europe has seen in the past.”

The role of the Stryker will be to rapidly deploy anywhere it is needed, said General West.

“They can get there a lot faster. They’re much more easily sustained,” he said.