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October 7th, 2006 - Ripples of
Blast Still Affect Stryker Troops |
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Ripples of Blast Still
Affect Stryker Troops By Sean Cockerham The Olympian Published Oct. 07, 2006 Baghdad, Iraq - The massive explosion
ripped a crater into the road. Fort Lewis soldiers, dazed
and bloody, staggered from their toppled Stryker and pulled buddies out as
enemy fighters rained bullets from all directions. The horror happened nearly
six weeks ago to a platoon of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment. Some
survivors still have trouble sleeping. The soldiers go on with
their daily combat missions in western Baghdad and try to keep living their
lives as before. But the explosion is always there, just beneath the surface. They keep reminders of their
fallen friends, Cpl. Kenneth Cross and Spc. Daniel Dolan, all around. Several of the men of 3rd
platoon, Comanche Company, wear bracelets with Cross and Dolan's names and
KIA, for killed in action. The battalion's Tactical Operations Center honors
the men on a plaque as the "Fallen Heroes" of Aug. 27. There is a memorial set up
near the Camp Liberty laundry drop-off, a place where every soldier who lives
in "Tent City" will see it. The memorial honors Dolan's birthday of
Sept. 29. He would have been 20. "We all know you are
celebrating your birthday now with the Lord," it reads. "Good
friends like you and Corporal Cross are the true heroes in our heart and you
will never be forgotten." Cross' and Dolan's
belongings had been removed from the tent when they finally returned to base
from the hell mission, survivors said. Some of the Fort Lewis soldiers
remembered sitting around in bunches that day, hugging one another and
crying. Spc. Greg Sbaldigi, 21, of
Marietta, Ga., said he could only sleep for half an hour a night soon after
it happened. The horror also made it tough to roll back out into Baghdad, he
said. "It gets you
nervous," said Sbaldigi, who, like most of his buddies, lived on post
back at Fort Lewis. "I was nervous as hell for the first month." The blast that killed Cross
and Dolan stands as the biggest hit to the Stryker brigade since it returned
to Iraq in July, with troops spread between Baghdad and Mosul. The way the men died was
also rare: The armored, 21-ton infantry carriers are known for taking a hit
and rolling back to base. Losing one life from traumatic wounds caused by a
roadside bomb is unusual, two casualties in one attack even more so. The improvised explosive
device was planted along the main highway that runs from Jordan through
Baghdad. It's still probably the most dangerous area that the Tomahawk
Battalion patrols. "It was probably one of
the two biggest IEDs I've ever seen," said Lt. David Chapman of
Lakewood, originally from Edwardsville, Ill., who works in the command
headquarters for Comanche Company. The company commander, Capt.
Matt Pike of Lacey, said it would be difficult for insurgents to acquire, put
together and plant that much explosive material without being spotted. Pike speculated that it
might have been planted before the Strykers started patrolling the area in
August. No coalition forces had operated in the neighborhood, called
Ghazaliyah, for a month before they arrived. The deadly patrol was
supposed to be just a simple three-hour mission, said Pvt. Darrin Carroll,
21, who shared a tent with Dolan. The Stryker was going to link up with Iraqi
security forces when it hit the monster IED. Carroll described a chaotic
scene of soldiers, some wounded themselves, working to rescue the men trapped
in Cross' and Dolan's Stryker, which had rolled on its side. Insurgents
opened fire, he said. "From rooftops, alleys
they started shooting at us from everywhere," said Carroll, of
Chillicothe, Ohio. "It seems like it went on forever." Almost the whole squad had
to spend the night in the hospital, and two soldiers were seriously wounded,
one with a broken back, Carroll said. Third platoon soldiers are
like those throughout Iraq. They play Madden NFL Football on their video game
system, watch DVD movies on laptops and tease each other constantly. But they
grow quiet and thoughtful when talking about Cross and Dolan. Both were good guys, Carroll
said. Dolan was really just a kid, a recent high school graduate from Roy,
Utah. "Back home, his life
revolved around his car," Carroll said. Dolan's love was a Subaru
STI sports car. Soldiers called him "Delta Dan" and said he spent
around $400 getting himself outfitted with all the latest combat gear at
Tactical Tailor in Tacoma. Cross, 21, had just gotten
married and talked all the time about starting a family with his young wife.
The other soldiers called him "Crossfire." They made up a song about
the Superior, Wis., native when he was driving a Stryker during training in
California. "Crossfire, he's a danger driver, Crossfire he's a woman's
desire," Sbaldigi sang. Carroll is frustrated by
what happened to his friends. "We're out there trying
to help, but all they do is shoot at us every chance they get," he said. External link:
http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061007/NEWS/610070335 |