EIELSON AIRFORCE BASE, ALASKA--The sky is cold and grey outside of our Stryker armored personnel carrier.  Light flakes of snow fall through the vehicle's top hatch, tickling my face and eyes.  Idling quietly, our convoy lies on the side of the road, waiting for the call.

I feel sick.

Assigned as an embedded reporter to a 172nd Stryker Brigade rifle squad from Fort Wainwright, it was my job to enter the battlefield and objectively report on the situation.

We were heading to a war game, but now we were stalled, waiting for a three star general to show up who didn't want to miss the action.  Our squad, with the rest of the company, was conducting a raid, invading a town and killing or arresting those human targets on our list.

This is not a police or humanitarian food drop mission.  The soldiers are not there to build wells or maintain sewers for the indigenous population.  This is John Wayne, shoot first, search 'em later type mission.

Soldiers from another unit play the opposing force with reckless abandon, and both teams use actual weapons, firing blanks and using a laser-tag type of system called MILES gear to determine whether you've been hit.

Earlier I had cleansed myself of a bona-fide Army Breakfast of hot egg and American cheese wrap, with strawberry milk and potato something or other.  Now I was just trying to control my breathing, while sandwiched inside a 19 ton Stryker with eleven other soldiers.

I'd heard a soldier who had already been to Iraq complain about the Stryker vehicles, calling them "coffins."  Now I couldn't get the image out of my mind.  It didn't help that I couldn't stop thinking that our Stryker was actually a submarine, thousands of feet under the water.

Allowing UAF students to accompany the Stryker Brigade is a spanking new project begun by the UAF Journalism Department.  The military said yes because they want to train their soldiers in the "correct" way to talk to reporters.  And according to the military brass, this has never been done before.

As an embedded reporter, it was my job to find and analyze the facts of our mission, so that I could later grill the commanding officers at our mock press conference about enemy, friendly, and civilian casualties, and basically be an asshole journalist.

But that morning, while inside the Stryker, I had disgorged a hot Army breakfast into my Nalgene water bottle.  The food had not sat well in my already flu-ridden body, and now, surrounded by soldiers, unable to move, at about six o'clock in the morning, dressed like a combatant on a mission training how to kill other people, I gave her back up into my ridiculously expensive water bottle, and sealed the lid.

Surprisingly, none of the other soldiers in the vehicle seemed to notice, or they just didn't care.  I apologized to the radio operator sitting across from me for splashing his knee with unwanted Army grub.

"Oh, that's fine," he said, inspecting the damage, "there's no way I could smell worse than I already do."

Our convoy was made up of several dozen Stryker vehicles, eight-wheeled armored infantry carriers, and a few Mobile Gun Systems, basically Humvees suped up with a missile launcher turret for use against armored targets.  Our vehicle had the most important task in the mission; storming the building believed to house the insurgent leaders, arresting and/or killing them on arrival.

"If they had real guns, you'd be shitting your pants right now, wouldn't you?"  Jones asked.  I weakly nodded my head to concur that yes, if we were entering a war-zone with an armed enemy, I would probably become sponge-bob shit-pants.

The convoy finally got the green light, and we began bouncing down the icy road toward our objective.   I could see the outside world from where I sat next to the Lieutenant through the video screen used to aim our turret equipped .50 caliber machine gun, which most of the Strykers are armed with for use against "soft" targets.

A .50 caliber round is approximately six inches long, and, an Army friend assured me, could easily pass through twenty men lined up shoulder to shoulder.  Recently, a live round had been found mixed in with the blank training ammo.  Uh Oh.  I took some small comfort in my Kevlar vest and helmet, but the sheer enormity of the.50 round made me question their retardant abilities when faced with such an ordinance.

However, in the end it wasn't a problem; I was asked to remain in our Stryker with the commander throughout the mission.   That was fine by me; I was in no shape to enter a battleground, and in this particular scenario I didn't believe that my Bic and Steno could compete against the M-16.

Traveling quickly through the snow, our convoy headed to the objective building.

The chaos began almost instantly; frantic voices over the radio; the enemy had been engaged.  We were still moving forward when we heard rounds being fired outside, and then the lieutenant began shouting out targets for Ser. Moody, our .50 cal gunner.  He began firing rapidly at the enemy, swiveling the turret left and right and laughing like the crazed helicopter gunner in "Full Metal Jacket."

"Stop! Stop!" shouted the lieutenant to the driver.  "Open the Hatch!" 

The hydraulics in the back hatch hiss open, and the seven-man team dismounts.  They stack up on one side of the vehicle, weapons at the ready, and leapfrog to the three-story building a few feet away, visible to me on the Stryker's screens.  It was cool; just like in the movies.

Meanwhile, a yelp from atop our vehicle caught my attention, followed by our .50 cal gunner, Moody, yelling in abject pleasure as he continued to light up enemies running from cover to cover.  Moody then abruptly quit firing, and slid down the hatch, back into the vehicle.  He had been "hit."

"Jones, get up on that .50!" Yelled the lieutenant.  Through the screens, I could see enemy soldiers moving about.  Jones, the radio operator, frantically tried to squeeze through to man the gun, his radio pack getting caught in the hatch's narrow confines.

"I've never fired this thing before!" he yelled.  "It's not working!"  We had a jam, and Sgt. Moody, although dead, walked Jones through fixing and refeeding the ammo belt into the gun.  Jones, locked and loaded, began to rake the enemy with fire.

Ten minutes later Jones too was hit, but the other team had made it back into the Stryker.  They had quickly cleared the three story building, taking two casualties, killing several enemies and capturing two wanted "insurgent" leaders.  The mission was over, the opposing force destroyed with overwhelming numbers and firepower.

Would you like to know what I learned from my time embedded with the Army?  Stay out of the way as much as you can.  Be respectful, and show no fear.  Eat whenever you can, and steal as much food from the mess tent as you can carry for later consumption.

Chew tobacco or smoke cigarettes. Just about everyone in the infantry but the chaplain imbibes, and you can make friends with that otherwise gruff staff sergeant in your vehicle by sharing your supply.  Its kind of like being in prison, it gives you "street cred" with the grunts.

An "after action review" followed the mission.  The soldiers discuss what they did right and what they did wrong.  And then the long ride back to Fairbanks.  I began to feel better on the way back home, and actually got some sleep as we bounced back into town.  I just tried not to think about my military breakfast, and the brutal reality that the men and women in the 172nd Stryker Brigade are training to survive in. 

Photo by Ginny Tschanz/ Special to the Sun Star
Awaiting orders to being the training raid, soldiers get out of their vehicles to stretch their legs and smoke, while commanding officers discuss what is to take place in the simulated of Wadi Al-Trif, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004.

Photo by Ginny Tschanz/ Special to the Sun Star
21-year-old Specialist Laudicina of Bravo 21st listens to his radio as a jumble of numbers indicating civilian, enemy and soldier casualities shouts back and forth Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2004.

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