SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, EAST RANGE — A new and decidedly different chapter in Hawai'i Army history sits idling in a football field-sized structure here, being readied to make its mark on the world.

The 19-ton, eight-wheeled Strykers that will remake a big portion of the Army in Hawai'i have started to arrive in batches of 30 to 50 a month, and driver training at East Range is expected to start this week.

Nearly 50 Stryker armored vehicles are on the Island. In the tentlike structure on Friday, 135 soldiers were clambering around the inside and outside of 33 of the vehicles, familiarizing themselves with their operation.

The rapid-response Stryker brigade of about 3,900 soldiers is designed to be transported to hot spots on new C-17 cargo carrier aircraft based at Hickam Air Force Base. Several other Stryker brigades have seen duty in northern Iraq.

For Hawai'i, the $1.5 billion brigade and the arrival of Stryker vehicles after at least five years of planning represent a milestone in one of the biggest Army projects here since World War II. The transformation of Schofield by the Strykers includes more than $700 million in construction projects to support them.

The unit is expected to be operational in fall 2007. Sgt. 1st Class Steven Stankovich, 33, one of the soldiers going through familiarization on Friday, is eager to reach that point.

"These are great. (I'm) really excited to work on them, excited to see what they do once we get them deployed," said Stankovich, from Pittsburgh, who's with the 5th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. "I think it's inevitable they'll be going somewhere."

Military analyst Dan Goure of the Virginia-based Lexington Institute said the speedy Strykers, which can hit 70 mph on the highway, have tremendous versatility, and if Iraq winds down, could be used as a "rapid backstop" for Iraqi forces.

Seven brigades and a fleet of 2,575 Stryker vehicles are being planned.

"Frankly, I would not be surprised to see Stryker brigades among the last to leave Iraq," Goure said.

VEHICLES NEW TO ISLAND

Ron Borne, the 25th Infantry Division's "transformation" director, said the armored vehicles — which cost between $1.3 million and $1.5 million for an infantry version that can carry nine soldiers and two crew members — started to arrive about a month ago from General Dynamics Land Systems.

The vehicles are assembled in Canada or the Mainland, transported to Fort Lewis in Washington state, shipped to O'ahu and trucked up to East Range to be outfitted with radios and other equipment, Borne said.

Until recently, the 25th Division's only Stryker was a demonstrator medical evacuation vehicle on loan from the Mainland.

Borne said even though preparations have been ongoing for months, the vehicles' arrival "is significant because we have enough on Island to start the (operational) training part of transformation for the Stryker brigade."

Stryker Brigade Combat Team soldiers are about a week and a half into the classroom phase. A driver's course has been set up in the woodsy East Range, and starting this week, soldiers will begin practicing driving the big vehicles.

A central part of East Range was picked to keep distractions to a minimum.

"Eventually, we'll take them out on some of our normal training roads that they would drive on anyway," Borne said, "and then the final one is they are given a driver's test."

The 2nd Brigade at Schofield was bulked up with an extra 1,000 soldiers to create the Stryker unit, which is named after two Medal of Honor recipients, Spc. Robert F. Stryker, who was killed in the Vietnam War, and Pfc. Stuart S. Stryker, killed in World War II.

The Army has been working toward a lighter, faster responding force with the seven Stryker medium-weight brigades. The change also involves reorientation of greater firepower to other infantry units to make them more self-contained fighting forces and more expeditionary like the Marines.

NOT JUST FOR COMBAT

Three Stryker brigades will be at Fort Lewis, Wash., one is in Alaska and other units will be in Pennsylvania and Germany.

The Army traditionally included heavy tank forces that took too long to deploy and light infantry forces with Humvees that weren't sufficiently armored.

Goure believes that "without question, Stryker has been one of the most successful new programs out of the Army in decades" based on its mobility, speed and flexibility.

With transport, ambulance and nuclear-biological-chemical detection capabilities, Strykers also would be useful in a natural disaster or terrorism incident in Hawai'i, he said.

In combat, the Stryker's ceramic composite armor, which can stop a 14.5 mm heavy machine-gun round, has done "relatively well," Goure said. "They seem to be able to defeat more IEDs (improvised explosive devices in Iraq) than not."

Although soldiers have been killed in Strykers in Iraq, Goure said he knows of a Stryker that flipped one and a half times when a 500-pound roadside bomb went off near it, but "everybody in it got out alive."

One complaint was the lack of air conditioning in most models. Schofield officials say by next June, all Hawai'i vehicles will have it.

Sgt. George Galovin, a 28-year-old soldier at Fort Lewis, said a Stryker "was pretty much my home" through part of 2004 and 2005 in the Mosul area of Iraq. He is a believer in the vehicles.

"I think they are an excellent way to get on and off the battlefield safely — as far as safety goes over there," Galovin said. "I saw a lot of Strykers go down in operations, but they saved a lot of lives in the process."

With 5,000 pounds of additional "slat" armor that looks like a bird cage around the side of the Strykers, Galovin said his vehicle repelled five rocket-propelled grenades with no hull penetrations.

Just being close to the explosion creates a lot of air compression "so it can even take the air out of your lungs if it happens right next to a hatch," said the Washington state resident.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Although work on more than $700 million in construction projects continues for the Strykers — including plans for the creation of 71 miles of private trails on O'ahu and the Big Island to minimize public road use — a lawsuit filed by three Native Hawaiian and environmental groups remains a legal challenge to the project.

Earthjustice attorney David Henkin has said the Army violated the National Environmental Policy Act by excluding the public from the Stryker environmental impact review process, and it did not look at locations other than Hawai'i for the fast response brigade as required.

Arguments were made in December, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco hasn't ruled on the case, which the Army said was essentially dismissed in U.S. District Court.

The Stryker brigade also has been a frequent source of complaint by groups concerned about the increased "militarization" of Hawai'i.

Kyle Kajihiro, program director for the American Friends Service Committee and a Stryker opponent, said, "It's very upsetting that they (the Army) would continue to press forward with this project even though they know there has been tremendous opposition and that there are lawsuits challenging the legitimacy of the environmental impact statement still pending."

Among the bigger projects, Borne said an approximately $32 million Battle Area Complex at Schofield for Stryker maneuver and fire practice is expected to be completed in a couple of years.

Another range, Qualification Training Range 1, will be completed in August, and some Stryker training will take place there, Borne said.

A Stryker trail will connect Schofield through Helemano to Kahuku using Drum Road, a rutted access road in place since the 1930s. Another trail will lead to Dillingham Airfield.

In the meantime, "we can still get on the public roads (with Strykers), just not at high-traffic times," Borne said.

Training with the Strykers at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island is expected to start next year. The Army is in negotiations to buy 23,000 acres from Parker Ranch adjoining the 109,000-acre training area for maneuver and blank firing.

"We're in negotiations with the owner right now, and that should be wrapped up shortly, we think," Borne said.

Driver training on armored vehicles expected to start this week

STRYKER FORCE

Ten variants of the Stryker armored vehicle will be delivered to Schofield Barracks. The list includes: