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Bringing home soldiers a somber duty

May-11-2007 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

The bad news arrived between 3 and 4 in the morning, like nearly every other time that Maj. Bob Bennett’s comrades have called from Iraq to let him know that another of their soldiers has died.

The caller gives a name, a Social Security number and preliminary details. It sets in motion a process that will draw in many of the 250 or so soldiers under Bennett’s charge as a Stryker brigade rear detachment commander.

“Everything stops,” Bennett said Thursday. “We are doing other things – training replacements, for instance. We have trained and sent more than 100 soldiers to Iraq as replacements.”

But when it comes time to attend to a soldier who’s been killed, he said, “it becomes the total focus of what we’re doing – and it ought to be the total focus of what we’re doing.”

The most recent call brought six names, six numbers – an entire squad, save one soldier, wiped out in Sunday’s Stryker bombing in Baqouba.

A roadside bomb exploded beneath the vehicle, killing Staff Sgt. Vincenzo Romeo, 23; Sgt. Jason Harkins, 25; Sgt. Joel Lewis, 28; Cpl. Matthew Alexander, 21; Cpl. Anthony Bradshaw, 21; and Cpl. Michael Pursel, 19. A Russian photojournalist, Dmitry Chebotayev, 29, also was killed.

Bennett said the sole survivor of Sunday’s bombing, the Stryker driver, suffered wounds to one of his hands and has been evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He’ll likely be flown home to a stateside hospital over the next week, he said.

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