Stryker Brigade News

At almost precisely the same time another helicopter landed in Baquba. It carried Col. David Sutherland, commander of the American combat brigade in Diyala Province. He was returning from the large military base in Balad, where he had visited wounded soldiers and gone to the morgue, where he saluted and then prayed as he placed his hands on a long black body bag containing the body of a military policeman killed that day by a sniper in Baquba.

It had been a long day for Colonel Sutherland and his brigade chaplain, Maj. Charlie Fenton, who have taken it on themselves to visit every dead and badly wounded soldier in the 5,000-strong unit, the Third Brigade Combat Team of the First Cavalry Division.

But it was still not over. After arriving in Baquba, Major Fenton walked into the brigade headquarters and heard Colonel Sutherland on a loudspeaker informing officers that a soldier from another brigade had committed suicide in Muqdadiya. Then he was handed a list of nine new casualties, the dead and the wounded. At the top was Sergeant Sebban. Four hours later, he and Colonel Sutherland climbed into another helicopter, bound once again for Balad. “We’ve never had to see this many at once,” Major Fenton said as he walked in darkness in helmet and body armor to the landing pad just after 11 p.m., trailed by soldiers grasping stacks of Purple Hearts in navy blue leather cases.

The two officers have made the round trip to Balad more than 70 times since arriving in October. But on that day, March 17, the brigade suffered its highest daily toll, with two dead and 14 wounded.

Altogether, the unit has seen 39 soldiers die in five months, more in that brief span than the number killed in any brigade that preceded it in yearlong deployments here. Names of the dead are written on a piece of metal affixed to a tall concrete barrier on Forward Operating Base Warhorse, near Baquba. With the death of Sergeant Sebban, the barrier ran out of space. A new barrier was just erected next to it.

Once described by the American military as comparatively stable, Diyala, which is roughly the size of Maryland, has been transformed into a fierce battleground as vicious in many places as the most dangerous parts of Anbar Province, the volatile Sunni area in western Iraq. It has been besieged by Sunni militants and extremists trying to eradicate Shiites and establish a Taliban-like sanctuary, and by Shiite militias, who have allies in the provincial government and security forces that are Shiite-dominated even though Sunnis make up a majority of the population.

More than a year ago the American military decided to cut back drastically the number of troops in Diyala. But that plan is now in reverse, as new troops move back into Baquba, the provincial capital, trying to quell the bitter fighting as part of the plan to put more troops in Iraq.

The casualties are taking a tremendous emotional toll on the brigade. Major Fenton, 48, recently sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. He likes to say a unique psalm or Bible verse when he visits each dead soldier, but he says he has almost run out of suitable Scripture.