Oregon Public Broadcasting

Soldiers from the Fourth Stryker Brigade at Fort Lewis are preparing to deploy to Iraq this fall, now that they've been called earlier than expected. The troops are replacing solders being redeployed to Afghanistan. Correspondent Ryan Morden has more.

In this medical training exercise, a solder from the Fourth Brigade has to grab his gear and run as fast as he can to a solder pretending to be injured.

His heart is pounding, he's out of breath, but he has no time to catch his breath because the wound needs to be treated. He's being timed with a stopwatch.

These solders are heading to Iraq earlier than they thought because another brigade is going to Afghanistan this summer.

Recently, President Obama said combat missions in Iraq will wind down and officially end August 31st, 2010. That means this could be the last Fort Lewis combat deployment for the Iraq war.

But Colonel John Norris isn't thinking about that, his focus is on the task at hand.

Colonel John Norris: "It's way too early for anyone to determine that. We've followed the guidance and orders of the senior ground commander in Iraq. We will do as we're told and we're expecting we'll serve 12 months operations in Iraq."

The Fourth Stryker Brigade just returned from Iraq this past summer as part of President Bush's so-called "troop surge."