The 81st Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), Washington Army National Guard is scheduled to participate in an Exportable Combat Training Capabilities (XCTC) rotation at the Yakima Training Center this summer.

XCTC is a program that helps Army National Guard brigade combat teams prepare for deployment, fighting, and winning battles. XCTC enables brigade combat teams to achieve the trained platoon readiness necessary to deploy, fight, and win battles worldwide.

Col. Craig Broyles, commander of the 81st SBCT, sees XCTC as a chance to train for what he calls the “Big Game.”

“We are scheduled to go to the National Training Center in August of 2026, and that is the Super Bowl. At NTC, you get the chance to see how it all goes together, how we move, how we shoot, how we support each other,” Broyles said. “We usually have two years to get there, and this July we will do Raven Focus, so we can focus on what we need to do to get there and that is XCTC, that’s our scrimmage.”

Following a successful XCTC rotation, Broyles believes the Brigade will succeed at NTC.

“My expectation will be to get everyone to play together, riflemen are going to do what they do, our maintenance folks will do their job well, the thing that was super hard was getting everyone to play together on the same page,” Broyles said. “But I have no doubt we will do well.”

Headquartered at Camp Murray, with units spread across the state, the 81st Stryker Brigade Combat Team makes up nearly half of the Washington Army National Guard –with 2,900 citizen-soldiers from every community in Washington state filling its ranks.