Washington National Guard brigade begins training for Iraq

YAKIMA — For now, the shooting is at targets in the sagebrush and the danger of attacks on imaginary convoys in the desert is all theoretical.

In a few months, when the 3,400 members of the Washington National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team begin their second deployment to Iraq in four years, they’ll be facing targets that might shoot back and real threats to real convoys.

The unit recently began months of training at the Army’s Yakima Firing Center, to be followed by further training at Fort McCoy, Wis., and Kuwait.

Instead of its exercises with tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, the 81st Brigade is relearning the use of quicker and lighter armored Humvees and other vehicles to protect supply convoys.

About 70 percent of the troops have served at least one tour in Iraq, some more and some with other units.

Sgt. Wayne Leyde, 26, of Mead, a banker at Wells Fargo on downtown Spokane, served two tours in Iraq with the regular Army. When the 81st got call-up orders in October, he was told he didn’t have to go but volunteered anyway.

Although he won a $1 million Washington Lottery scratch ticket prize in February, Leyde says he has no regrets.

“We each have a duty,” Leyde said as he and the rest of 1st Platoon, Delta Company, prepared to practice loading stretchers into a UH-1N Huey Medivac helicopter. “This is my duty. I chose it.”

Elsewhere, soldiers in the gray-green digitized patterns of the Army’s new desert camouflage fired at green dummies popping up and down at the command of a computer in a nearby control tower. Each was issued 40 rounds and had to hit the targets at least 25 times.

The computer recorded their scores, the soldiers got a copy and the numbers went into the paperwork that is used to make sure each soldier is ready.

“I don’t think al-Qaida worries much about its paperwork,” said Capt. Clayton Colliton, commander of Hotel Company, 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry, a military science instructor at Washington State University.