Extended brigade suffers casualty (death in Alaska Stryker brigade)

[Barrett808]

Extended brigade suffers casualty
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - The Army brigade whose year-long tour of duty in Iraq was extended by the Pentagon last month just as the soldiers were beginning to return home has suffered its first death since taking on the extra duty.

The Pentagon on Tuesday announced the death of Staff Sgt. Eugene H.E. Alex, 32, of Bay City, Mich. He was assigned to the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade, from Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

He was not among the 301 members of the brigade who had already returned to Alaska, only to be ordered back to Iraq. He was among the approximately 3,700 soldiers of the 172nd who were transferred from their original mission area in northern Iraq to the Baghdad area, as part of an effort to quell sectarian violence.

The Pentagon said Alex died Saturday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where he had been taken after being shot by hostile forces in Baghdad last Wednesday.

No other details about his injuries or the circumstances in which he was shot were released.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060905/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_soldier_death

[rodeodance]

1. somehow this situation makes it seem even more trajic

[saigon68]

2. They die for Nothing (BUT HALLIBURTON PROFITS)

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war there there is nothing sweet or fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason."

Ernest Hemingway-1938

http://www.rjgeib.com/heroes/unamuno/franco.html