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Stryker soldiers coming home

Aug- 9-2005 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT

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BY CHRISTIAN HILL, THE OLYMPIAN

Soldiers from the 3,600-member 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division are scheduled to begin trickling home soon, said Joseph Piek, a civilian spokesman at Fort Lewis.

"We expect sometime within the next few weeks to a month for the soldiers to begin flowing in," he said.

But he cautioned that timeline could be pushed back -- and is dependent on the progress of its replacement unit, the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team out of Alaska.

Meanwhile, the yearlong deployment has had its share of casualties.

Today a bugler will once again play taps -- this time to honor the memory of Pfc. Nils Thompson, killed Thursday in Mosul when he came under fire during a patrol.

Thompson, 19, is the 62nd Fort Lewis soldier killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.

It's been two months since mourners last gathered at a Fort Lewis chapel for the memorial service of one of its soldiers.

The Mosul area, where the bulk of a Fort Lewis-based Stryker unit is deployed, has been relatively calm recently.

Attacks persist, the Associated Press reported, but the U.S. military has noted a 50 percent drop in attacks in the western part of the city over the past eight months. [...]


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