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Chaplain's fight: to keep the faith

Apr-22-2004 » Filed Under: Iraq News

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By BILL NEMITZ, Portland Press Herald Staff Writer

MOSUL, Iraq - He always knew that if it came to this, his would be one of the hardest jobs at Camp Marez. But only now, sitting in his cubbyhole office in the back of the camp's Olive Garden Chapel, did Chaplain David Sivret appreciate how hard.

"Yesterday was a horrendous day for all of us," Sivret, an Episcopal priest from Calais, said Wednesday afternoon.

That it was. Tuesday morning, insurgents ambushed a four-vehicle convoy of 12 soldiers - six from the Maine National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion and six from units in New York and South Carolina - as they drove through a crowded neighborhood on the western edge of Mosul.

Killed in the attack was Spc. Christopher Gelineau, 23, of Portland. Seriously injured was Spc. Craig Ardry, 30, of Pittsfield. Ardry is now recovering at a military hospital in Baghdad.

For Sivret, the crisis began just after 9 a.m., when he saw a field company commander running toward the 133rd's headquarters. Sivret followed, arriving just in time to hear the convoy calling for a medical evacuation helicopter over the radio.

The chaplain raced back to his office, donned his helmet and tactical vest and started up his Humvee. His destination: the field hospital at nearby Camp Diamondback.


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