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Remembering the soldiers of 1–25

May-25-2008 » Filed Under: 1/25 SBCT , Tributes

Jack Lewis, a reservist who served alongside the 1/25 SBCT in Iraq, wrote the following tribute.

By Jack Lewis, Crosscut.com

I saw their faces again the day our local paper decided to run a list of Washington-connected KIA — the military's way of shortening the phrase "Killed in Action" — from 2005. Members of the 1-25 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, they were all stationed at Fort Lewis prior to deployment. Ft. Lewis features a military museum, thousands of housing units, a post exchange (the Army's version of a "big box" store), an artillery brigade, and two Stryker brigades.

Laid out neatly on my desk adjacent to the slapdash piles of notes and software and phones and pens, these faces looked back at me, unchanged from when I last saw them. These men weren't packing for Europe with the rest of their brigade. The brigade had returned from Iraq without them, and it would go to Germany without them.

There was a First Lieutenant from Ohio, remembered better by my gunner (now a Redmond cop) than by me. He was with the 73rd Engineers, a company that spent time with us out in Tal Afar before they were relieved by a National Guard unit that turned out to be a danger to itself and others.

A sharp-featured, intelligent young guy who graduated from the Merchant Marine Academy, the el-tee was commanding his vehicle when it struck an IED (improvised explosive device) so big it ignited the Stryker's diesel tanks. Still conscious after sustaining third-degree burns and traumatic injuries, he commanded relief personnel to attend to his sappers first. Two days later, he died of wounds. Although their tour was nearly over, 73rd had kept to the squadron commander's standards even as they made their re-deployment plans.

A picture of that lieutenant's .50-caliber gunner also sat there on my desk, in a little swirl of wallet-sized black-and-whites on grainy newsprint. Twenty-one years old, the chunky army specialist from Arkansas already had received two Purple Hearts for combat wounds, and a Bronze Star Medal with Valor device for his intrepidity during previous engagements. Because his wife was due to deploy as well, the specialist had re-enlisted with an option to do another tour in Iraq. He believed in his mission. He knew why he was there.

I think of these two men when my fellow Seattleites cluck and shake their heads over their decaf venti lattes, sure that the soldiers in Iraq haven't a clue what our greedy society has duped them into. [...]


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