1st Brigade soldiers focus on counterinsurgency, major combat operations at Fort Stewart | savannahnow.com

With their M4 carbines raised to their eyes, more than a dozen U.S. soldiers exited the convoy of Bradley Fighting Vehicles and slowly advanced toward the three-story cement structure.

Once inside, the infantrymen carefully moved to the second floor, clearing room after room in their search for enemy fighters.

Suddenly, a series of gunshots rang out.

The short bursts echoed through the building as the soldiers exchanged fire with an insurgent.

For the troops with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, the short-lived firefight was just the first obstacle as they practiced assaulting an urban village to search for a high-valued enemy target during training May 20.

Throughout the assault exercise, soldiers with 2-7 Infantry continued through several buildings — mock businesses, homes and government posts — in the Colmar Urban Training Center on western Fort Stewart, interacting with civilians and enemy fighters as they searched the village for their target.

The exercise was just one of dozens the battalion has been executing for the last four weeks as part of 1st Brigade’s Radier Focus exercise that brigade officials said is helping to prepare the unit for another month-long training regimen the unit will undergo in August at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.

Since returning from a nine-month combat rotation in Afghanistan last summer, 1st Brigade soldiers have undergone training at the individual and small unit levels. Raider Focus, said Maj. Adam Cannon, the brigade’s operations officer, allows the soldiers to put their training together at the battalion level.

via 1st Brigade soldiers focus on counterinsurgency, major combat operations at Fort Stewart | savannahnow.com.