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Medals go to heroes of Iraq rollover

Mar-25-2008 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

MICHAEL GILBERT, The News Tribune

More than four years after the fact, the Army got around to decorating two men who saved the lives of five fellow soldiers – and spared the Army’s first Stryker brigade from further calamity on its combat debut in Iraq.

At Fort Lewis on Monday, Staff Sgt. William Rose and Brett Moore were each presented with the Soldiers Medal for heroism for rescuing their comrades from a Stryker that flipped into an irrigation canal near Samarra.

The 4,000 U.S. casualties in Iraq “would likely be 4,005 if not for the heroic actions of our honorees today,” Col. David Funk, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division commander, said at the presentation.

“Because they reacted so quickly, because they didn’t take the time to think better of it, five of our fellow soldiers are alive today,” Funk said.

The accident occurred Dec. 16, 2003, early in the 3rd Brigade’s first tour in Iraq.

Only eight days earlier, on Dec. 8, two other Strykers had fallen into a canal in Duluiyah. It was the brigade’s first combat mission, and three men were killed.

It was the worst start imaginable for the new brigade, and it seemed to add to concerns back home that the eight-wheeled armored vehicles weren’t the right choice for the Army’s new medium-weight brigades.

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Related Information:

"The other" rollover - FOB Tacoma


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