UPDATE: Here's the story after it was edited for space. Based on what you've been reading, whattaya think? Is the tone positive? Negative? Just right?

The sound of gunfire drew a crowd of a half-dozen Iraqi women to the streets. They shouted at U.S. troops. The Fort Lewis Stryker soldiers tried to calm the women through an interpreter, but a few continued grabbing at the troops’ equipment.

A soldier fired a warning shot in the air. An Iraqi woman crumpled to the ground. Several Iraqi men joined the protest. Soon five people were detained, their wrists bound. And then a television crew arrived to film the scene.

The final exercise of Monday’s battle simulation had soldiers responding to a sabotage threat at the water-treatment facility on North Fort Lewis.

At that moment, however, the Stryker brigade troops were reminded that even when a unit performs well, a momentary lapse of judgment can have large consequences.

They had made a critical mistake: One of the detainees broke free and ran down the street, away from the treatment plant. One soldier pursued him but couldn’t catch up. So the soldier shot the detainee in the back, just inches above where his hands were bound.

=> Read more!

The gunfire drew a crowd of a half-dozen Iraqi women to the streets in protest. They shouted at American troops. The soldiers tried to calm them down through an interpreter, but a few continued to grab at the troops’ equipment.

A soldier fired a warning shot in the air. An Iraqi woman crumpled to the ground. Several Iraqi men joined the protest. Soon five Iraqis were being detained, their wrists bound with zip-ties. And then a television crew arrived to film the scene.

At that moment near the end of a battle simulation, the troops of a Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade were reminded of a reality of today’s warfare: A unit can perform well, but a momentary lapse of judgment can have larger consequences.

The platoon of about 40 troops from Comanche Company of 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment – a unit of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – spent Sunday night and most of Monday on a situational-training exercise. They responded to realistic situations. Their guns fired blank ammunition with lasers recording hits. Role players filled in as Iraqis, both friendly as hostile.

The final exercise saw soldiers responding to a threat of a possible sabotage of the water-treatment facility on North Fort Lewis.

Four soldiers stormed out of their Strykers and ascended to the top of the tower at the facility. They spotted enemy gunmen and radioed in their locations, and other American soldiers attacked from the flanks. The Americans stopped an ambush in waiting. They evacuated wounded soldiers. They stopped the attack and captured the chemist plotting the attack.

Battalion commander Lt. Col. Charles Hodges said the exercise was designed to highlight the potential confusion of urban operations and remind soldiers to stay calm during tense situations.

“You can do a great tactical operation, but if the media sees someone shot and others arrested when you’re supposed to be there saving the water facility, then you’ve lost strategically,” he said.

One of the women acting as an Iraqi protester was instructed to fall if a warning shot was fired to teach that gunfire can immediately escalate a tense situation, Hodges said. The role of American troops has changed since the early days of the war, he added, and training must reflect that.

The troops did commit one other major mistake: One of the detainees broke free and ran down the street, away from the facility. One soldier pursued him but couldn’t catch up. So a soldier – it could have been the one pursuing or another from the roof – shot the detainee in his back, just inches above where his hands were bound with zip-ties.

In the post-exercise discussion, battalion commanders stressed that incidents like the shooting could have larger, destabilizing effects. But a water-treatment facility with a view of the Narrows Bridge – and not the streets of Baghdad – is the best place to make errors.

“No matter what you’ll do, you’ll never be perfect,” said Alan Bjerke, 3rd Brigade’s command sergeant major. “Most of the things you did, you did well. You got some good training, made some mistakes and learned from them. That’s what we’re out here to do.”

The soldiers struck before dawn. The vehicles rumbled through the woods of south Fort Lewis toward the mock-up village, which was a series of shipping containers surrounded by a 10-foot concrete wall.

A canister spewing yellow smoke preceded the attack. Soldiers jumped out of their Strykers and set up a perimeter while others stormed the compound. Gunshots came from the forest. Inside one of the vehicles, the gunner stared at his night-vision screen, aimed a .50-caliber machine gun with a joystick and fired. The shots stopped.

A call across the radio: An American soldier was injured. Spc. Ezra Tinkle bounded from the back hatch of the Stryker and sprinted toward the area. Tinkle, a 24-year-old medic, reported the soldier (a member of the 1st Cavalry Division who said other soldiers left him behind) had a compound fracture of his lower right leg. Staff Sgt. Sean Milligan radioed for a medical evacuation vehicle.

Tinkle splinted the leg, and two soldiers carried the injured man in a stretcher to a safe point across the compound. A few minutes later, they loaded him into the back of the Stryker.

Meanwhile, other members of the platoon searched and cleared each building. They captured the insurgent leader and discovered several pieces of evidence – including a cell phone with text messages indicating an imminent attack on the water-treatment facility near Solo Point on North Fort Lewis.

The platoon and several observers from Comanche Company analyzed the soldiers’ performance before they drove to facility.

“Overall, good job,” company commander Capt. Klint Kuhlman said. “You’re winning the game.”

The bleary-eyed soldiers returned to Comanche Company’s building after four hours of sleep.

They’ve got an hour to equip themselves, wake up for the exercise and roll out. So what do they use? So far, the top four products (but not necessarily in this order) seem to be energy drinks, black coffee, Hot Pockets and chewing tobacco.