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Stryker Brigade part of the human cost of war

Mar- 1-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

[Link to Full Article]
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

FORT LEWIS -- Army Sgt. Michael M. Merila of Sierra Vista, Ariz., died Feb. 16, a day before his 24th birthday on a helicopter spiriting his wounded body from Tall Afar, Iraq, to a combat hospital in Mosul.

Two days later, Sgt. Thomas D. Robbins was laid to rest amid the snowy fields of Saratoga National Cemetery in New York on his 28th birthday.

And two days after that, the family of Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, 29, who had prayed for two agonizing weeks that he would be found alive after his patrol boat capsized in the Tigris River Jan. 25, brought him home forever. He was buried Feb. 20 in Bremerton, his hometown.

The three soldiers had stood together in a departure ceremony in November for Fort Lewis' 5,000- strong Stryker Brigade, now serving in northern Iraq. They were February's human cost in troops with ties to Washington, among more than 15 servicemen connected to the state who have paid the ultimate price.


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