Those eight-wheeled Strykers coming to Fort Carson are a perfect fit for the place, says Army Secretary Mark Esper.

Esper was in town last week on his first official stop at Fort Carson after a year in the Army’s top civilian job. He played a key role in figuring out what to do with the post’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, a unit now coming home from Afghanistan that was slated to switch to 72-ton tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

The brigade will instead get the 18-ton Strykers in a move that will add a few hundred soldiers to the post .

Esper says the Strykers work well for Fort Carson because the brigade that’s getting them is well-stocked with infantry troops who can ride in the new rigs a squad at a time. The wheeled transportation can also be used to haul the unit to the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, east of Trinidad, for training.

But taking all those infantry soldiers and turning them into tank crews would be a tough transition, Esper said.

“It’s easier to convert an infantry brigade combat team into a Stryker brigade combat team,” he said.

Esper also has a sunny outlook for the post’s soon-to-be security force assistance brigade.

That 800-soldier unit, announced this year, will be designed to train foreign troops to fight their own wars.

Esper says that’s what infantry units have been doing in Afghanistan on recent tours.

Because they have more than 2,000 fewer soldiers, the new security assistance brigade can do the job with greater expertise at a fraction of the cost, Esper said.

“It will allow us to relieve in place an infantry brigade combat team that has typically performed this role,” he said.

It’s a philosophy that goes well with America’s slow drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, where local forces are still working to wrest whole provinces from Taliban insurgents.

Esper is a fan of another Army change that is forcing troops to get fit or get out.

The new “deploy or get out” policy limits the time that soldiers with physical ailments that prevent them from combat duties can spend in the service. For most soldiers that means they have 12 months to get healthy, or they need to look for work.

“The aim isn’t to kick soldiers out,” Esper said. “The aim is to make soldiers deployable.”

The secretary says the policy has improved the combat readiness of units across the service, as has also improved morale by making all soldiers play be the same rules.

“Overall, I have been hearing nothing but positive things,” he said.

Contact Tom Roeder: 636-0240 Twitter: @xroederx