As I walked across the sand and through the sage of the Yakima Training Center last Friday afternoon, I noticed Spc. Tyler Cross and Pfc. Andrew Moses lying on the ground, patiently tying together two large pieces of camouflage netting.

2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment's Command Sgt. Maj. Peter Smith noticed that I noticed.

"We haven't done much of that in almost 10 years," he said to me.  "The veteran Soldiers are relearning old skills; the new Soldiers are learning them."

Since mid-May, 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has been conducting full spectrum training at the Yakima Training Center (YTC).

"We haven't done this kind of training since 2001," Sgt. Shane Winkle said as he watched Cross and Moses finish up.

The camouflage would later be positioned over some equipment, making it much more difficult to see.

A no-nonsense Soldier with a direct manner, Smith pointed out that his Soldiers were learning to conduct combat operations without a forward operating base, or FOB, to return to. "We're operating in the field; we maneuver, take and hold land," Smith said.

When I asked for specifics, Smith said it meant that the brigade would train to sustain itself and conduct a full spectrum of operations anywhere in the world. "We're training like we used to in the 1990s," Smith said.

In other words, the brigade is shifting from a counterinsurgency - or COIN - operations only concept to a more robust and wider ranging concept of operations.

"COIN will remain a part of our mission," Lt. Col. JD Highfill explained to me as we had supper on the hood of a Humvee. "But the full spectrum we are training to also includes being able to react to a guerrilla attacks, conventional operations in a classic force-on-force setting, and a criminal element."

A Midwesterner possessed of quiet intelligence, a solid work ethic and well-grounded values, Highfill commands 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division.

Highfill said the training his Soldiers were conducting was designed to broaden the brigade's ability to react to a wide range of challenges.

His statement - and the training that goes with it from his battalion's work in the desert - will soon be tested.

"When we go to the National Training Center (NTC) later this summer, we will be the first Stryker brigade to encounter a full spectrum of operations in about a decade," Highfill said.

To get a closer look at preparation for NTC, last Saturday morning I accompanied Highfill to a demolition training range where Soldiers assigned to the 18th Engineers Company were training 2nd Battalion's Soldiers in the art of making obstacles disappear in a flash.

Moments after a number of cratering charges had been detonated, I walked onto the training site with Highfill to inspect the results.

"What we've done is dig holes in order to place larger charges," 1st Lt. Ian Riley explained. "The point of this training is to show Soldiers how to destroy a road and stop the enemy."

Riley went on to explain that slowing the enemy down gives our Soldiers the opportunity to identify equipment, numbers of personnel and combat capability. "It gives us a chance to take the fight to them."

As we talked, about 20 of his Soldiers placed six packages of C4 high explosives weighing between 40 and 80 pounds into the holes the shaped charges had dug.

Their work was quick and precise.

Each charge was lowered into a large fence post-sized hole about four feet deep.  The dirt was pushed back into the hole and tamped down. 460 pounds of C4 awaited the spark to explode.

The primer cord was attached to a central triggering device.

Time to head for cover.

Highfill and I climbed back into his Stryker, and from a position exactly 247 meters away from the charges, we watched the area on a small screen.

"In five, four, three, two, one."

The blast wave rolled over and rocked the Stryker as tons of earth moved upward and outward.  A large dust cloud climbed high into the sky.

"Now, that's going to be a problem for the enemy," Riley understated a few minutes later as we stood on the lip of a crater a good 10 feet deep, 50 feet long and 30 feet wide.

His work done for the moment, Riley and his Soldiers set about training on bangalores, an explosive device designed to clear holes through wire obstacles.

"This training has been good for us," Spc. Ryan Bowman, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, commented as he sat in the back of a Stryker.

"I feel like we're actually doing our job."