by The Associated Press AP

12:43 p.m. AKST, February 15, 2011
FAIRBANKS, Alaska—
About 4,000 soldiers from the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry at Fort Wainwright in Alaska have arrived at the Army's National Training Center in Southern California.

Located at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, the National Training Center will give the Arctic Wolves a better sense of the climate they will face in Afghanistan and the challenges they will encounter working with Afghan people.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports the troops will receive special training for operating their eight-wheeled armored Stryker vehicles under the conditions they will face in Afghanistan. The brigade previously served two combat tours in Iraq, which has considerably more infrastructure.

The soldiers will spend a month in California before they depart for Afghanistan in May.