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Scouts see more action than most

Oct-26-2006 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

SEAN COCKERHAM; The News Tribune

MOSUL, IRAQ –The platoon members emerged from their armored Stryker carriers to a scene of awful destruction. A suicide truck bomb had exploded and killed 10 Iraqi civilians waiting in line to buy gasoline.

Even these Tacoma-area combat veterans were shocked last week when confronted with shredded buildings and a 15-foot-deep crater blasted into the ground.

They didn’t seem fazed by the hu- man remains, though. They’d seen it before.

The men of the scout platoon, from the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, have seen that and a lot more in their first four months of a yearlong deployment to Mosul. Several of them are on their second Iraq tours.

Many of the platoon’s soldiers are up for valor awards after breaking up a mortar attack that injured several soldiers here earlier this month. They helped thwart what officials later described as a rare coordinated insurgent attack on Forward Operating Base Marez, the main coalition base in northern Iraq and home to more than 2,000 Fort Lewis soldiers.

The platoon leader

Lt. Blake Hall, 24, of Lakewood, knew the range of the mortars that came in over the fortified walls of FOB Marez on Oct. 12. He was aware of a nearby field where the bad guys could have fired from.

Hall’s scout platoon responded to the scene in their 21-ton Stryker vehicles and killed two insurgents and captured four others, as well as seizing their mortar systems.

His men were buzzing about it for hours.

“The guys were up until 2 or 3 in the morning telling stories,” Hall said. “The first sergeant had to come and tell us to be quiet.” [...]


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