Stryker Brigade News

Stryker brigade officials have not been notified of any extension of the unit’s mission in Iraq, said Maj. Nicholas Mullen, rear detachment commander with the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

“We’re still on track to have people start coming home,” Mullen said Tuesday.

He acknowledged that plans can change quickly, however.

Meantime, the post gathered Tuesday to pay tribute to its first soldier to die in Iraq in more than two months.

At a day over 19, Pfc. Nils Thompson was the youngest of the 1st Brigade’s 33 service members to be killed in the unit’s yearlong deployment to Iraq. He died Thursday in Mosul, shot by a sniper as he stood in the hatch of his Stryker.

Officials said his unit was scouting out polling places for the Oct. 15 referendum in which Iraqis will vote on a new constitution.

Thompson joined the Army last August after high school in Confluence, Pa., and arrived at Fort Lewis in January. After a couple of months of training, he was off to Mosul in March as a replacement.

Soldiers who knew him said he was deeply religious and spent his spare time reading the Bible and attending chapel services. His relatives told the hometown newspapers he always wanted to be a soldier, and didn’t trouble them with complaints about conditions or his experiences in Iraq. [...]

Soldiers praised his willingness to enlist in an Army at war. He is the 63rd service member from Fort Lewis to die in Iraq, and the 12th from his unit – the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment.

Soldiers who spoke Tuesday said it seemed as though Thompson had been with them all along, even though he arrived in Mosul seven months into the brigade’s deployment.

Like others who spoke at Tuesday’s memorial, Sgt. 1st Class James Grove admitted he didn’t know Thompson at all. He said he guessed, though, the young soldier might have been nervous about measuring up with his battle-hardened squad mates, afraid he might let them down.