For a battle-tested brigade, another tour in Iraq looms

"FORT RILEY, Kan. - Capt. Mike Squires forms up members of "Bandito Charlie" Company and begins a dry run through a training course.

"Hop in the war wagon," said Squires, motioning toward the back seat of a desert-brown Humvee.

That Humvee already has been to Iraq. It still carries scars from an IED, or improvised explosive device, that was along a roadside.

"It was probably a 155mm artillery shell," Squires adds matter-of-factly. "Fortunately, everybody was all right."

The 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry of the 1st Brigade and the rest of the 1st Infantry Division, the famed "Big Red One," expects to return to Iraq in a few months. It is the second yearlong stint for about 40 percent or more of the soldiers in the brigade."
The Murcury News