3 Members Of Ft. Lewis Stryker Brigade Killed In Iraq

KOMO1000 News ^ | 12/08/03 | KOMO Staff

[TexKat]

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - Three soldiers from the Stryker Brigade Combat Team were killed in an accident during a combat patrol in Iraq Sunday night, ABC News reports. A fourth soldier was injured.

The accident occurred after an embankment on an unimproved road collapsed, causing two Stryker infantry carrier vehicles to roll over into a canal. ABC News says it was not a result of hostile fire.

Heavy rainfall in the area might have been a cause, but the Army is still investigating.

The names of those killed have not been released.

[tongue-tied]

sb

Those families will NOT receive a phone call. They will be personally visited by an Army Chaplain and some other same-branch (Army OR Navy in my wife's case) people that are equipped to assist them in dealing with the loss.

They don't do "the telegram", "the phone call" or even now, "the email". There will be a face-to-face notification. As it should be.




May God bless and comfort those affected.

[sleavelessinseattle]

God Bless our Troops...misadventure or cowardly act of terrorism...It hurts EVERY time...But you know what? We ain't gonna back down like X42 in Somalia, and you know WHY?

Thanks for the ping, CC

[Vetvoice]

You protest too much sir. If it was unstable and had a high center of gravity when it rolled off the shop floor, the Army could NOT have helped it by bolting on 5,200 pounds of more armor above the axels.

Another thing. RPGs debuted in the 1960s. I handled many of them in Vietnam and shot a few. That was over 40 years ago. How is it that General Dynamics presented a plan for a modern armored vehicle that made it through the entire Army acquisition process and nobody thought of RPGs until they got to Kuwait? That is odd!

BTW, the slatted armor meant to "catch" the RPGs does not cover the big wheels. The front two wheels on each side must be free to steer so none of them are covered.

[Matthew James]

Well said.

[Proud Legions]

It's been a long time since Physics for me as well. But I agree with what your premise is, and therefore, if the weight is added BELOW the original center of gravity, I would think it would make it more stable, not less. IN teh Stryker case the center of gravity started out below the operational horizontal plane. But maybe there is a Physics teacher out there who can set us all on the correct answer with this one. I am not a Physics teacher!

[Thunder 6]

Good luck to your cousin. This unit has been training together for almost three years. Please know this: Vehicle problems aside, it is one of the best trained in our army. Prayer is important...there is a long road ahead for the Brigade. They will need all our prayers.

warm regards,

[Proud Legions]

Vetvoice,

I didn't say anything about RPGs. I agree that in this day and age we need to design and build vehicles to handle that most obvious threat.

Nor did I say I was in love with the Stryker. I have always maintained it is an "interim" vehicle meant as a stop gap using basically off the shelf technology to give us a medium capability. Nor have I ever said Archy and SLB and Cannoreer #4 and any others were wrong to say a tracked vehicle would be better.

I am just saying too many take every little thing that happens and try and say ..."therefore, this vehicle is a boondoggle" prior to really knowing all the facts.

I am really on your side as far as wanting to know the truth and getting the best to our soldiers...I am just not as convinced as others that this program should be scrapped. I humbly say I think I am watching their performance in Iraq with a little less prejudice than some...for and against. I am convinced that we must do better in the long run, and that tanks and bradleys will be needed for many, many years...perhaps decades and longer. I am a tanker/cav trooper after all!

[Darksheare]

*LOL!*
Sorry I missed this last night.
*ugh*..

[Darksheare]

Thanks, it was one of my rare moments of clarity during the down time when I wasn't working on a drawing.
What I normally come up with when drawing?
Tagline is an example.

It really steams me that any dissent within the program was silenced at best, vindictively dealt with at worst.
But we expected something with the Strykers to go down, just not a roll over this soon.

[wtc911]

Casualty Notification Officers....a non-com or officer of equal or higher rank (to the soldier)...all volunteers...a Chaplain will go along...The Army's guidelines call for PNK notification by the CNO within two hours of the Army's internal verification.

[My back yard]

"Heavy rainfall in the area might have been a cause, but the Army is still investigating."

I hope that they do. My first thought was sabotage.

The Stryker is notoriously unstable.

[soldiers dad]

i too have a son in the Stryker brigade.. and watch the news and the internet for any information about their mission. My prayers go out to the families of these brave men...

[No Blue States]

May peace be with those who get bad news, as well as their families.

It must be very hard to have a child in this war, as the father of 2 young daughters it would be hard for me to know they are in a dangerous place.

May The Good Lord cause the Strykers to pick themselves up and go on to do great things in Iraq.

[sbct for freedom]

Thank you for the information, I am sorry about your wife, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Sorry it took so long to respond back.

[sbct for freedom]

It must be extra hard for the 101st, every few days another life is taken from them. The 101st families keep getting hit over and over. This is the first losses to the sbct and I can say I know what they are going through.

[No Blue States]

I noticed you joined today, welcome to Free Republic.

Sometimes i nearly feel its hypocritical for me to support the war without sacrificing my own flesh and blood for the cause like so many families are doing.

Its so much easier for me to support the war without My OWN kids in harms way. My nephew is going to boot camp in a couple of weeks, good kid.

"This is the first losses to the sbct and I can say I know what they are going through."

I pray it will also be the last loss.

[archy]

Nor did I say I was in love with the Stryker. I have always maintained it is an "interim" vehicle meant as a stop gap using basically off the shelf technology to give us a medium capability. Nor have I ever said Archy and SLB and Cannoreer #4 and any others were wrong to say a tracked vehicle would be better.

I don't necessarily think that.

I think a mix of wheeled and tracked vehicles would likely be better, and at least the tracked M113, already in the inventory and a known item, can be transported in-theater by all models of the C-130 aircraft. The Stryker cannot.

I think the Military Police Armored Security Vehicle was a dandy little vehicle for their purpose, better armed and armored than the Stryker, though probably as vulnerable to RPG fire, and as dubious off-road. Likewise, the Marine LAV-25s that retain their amphibious capability offer the ability to do something a Bradley cannot; again a good rationale for including somethjing of that sort, at least in a Bradley-M113-wheelie mixed force. And I bet something armored could have been worked up on the chassis of the 6x6 HIMARS combat vehicle. If not suitable for carrying a full 11-man squad, I'd bet two could be built for the cost of one Stryker.

Instead, the Stryker is force-fed to the troops as the only possible solution, and it becomes more and more apparant that the reason for that decision lies not with a decision to provide the troops with the best possible equipment, but to provide certain General Dynamics stockholders in past or present decisionmaking positions with the greatest financial return. That has now been done at the expense of the lives of three American soldiers, there will no doubt be more- yes, M113s and Bradleys can overturn, too, and have- and we should perhaps begin to dust off those statutes used to prosecute similar war profiteering during WWII.

-archy-/-

[archy]

It must be extra hard for the 101st, every few days another life is taken from them. The 101st families keep getting hit over and over. This is the first losses to the sbct and I can say I know what they are going through.

You'll find that there are several of us here, myself included, with experience in both armor and light armored cars, and others who've at least dealt to some extent with both wheeled and tracked vehicles, who are at best very skeptical of the Stryker vehicle and it's capabilities, and in at least some respects, downright condemnatory of the vehicle, particularly when compared with existing alternates.

But I do want you to know that that is in no way a reflection of those inside those vehicles, who are doing their jobs the best they can and are in some instances trying to make a pigs ear into a silk purse. Some of those in the Strykers are friends anbd confidants of ours, too, and our doubts about the vehicle do not extend to those inside them

Indeed, it's because their lives are precious to us as fellow soldiers, friends or relatives, that we want nothing less than the very best equipment for them to asccomplish their tasks with, keeping the number of casualties from hostile fire and vehicular accidents as mercifully low as possible.

So know that criticism of the Stryker as a vehicle, or the possible arrangement of the SCBT as a force structure are not, NOT NOT leveled at those aboard them...save, perhaps a few senior officers in on the ramrodded Stryker procurement scheme. May God save and protect those in the Strykers. They need all the help they can get- whether in that vehicle, or any other.

-archy-/-

[archy]

It's been a long time since Physics for me as well. But I agree with what your premise is, and therefore, if the weight is added BELOW the original center of gravity, I would think it would make it more stable, not less. IN teh Stryker case the center of gravity started out below the operational horizontal plane. But maybe there is a Physics teacher out there who can set us all on the correct answer with this one. I am not a Physics teacher!

You're halfway right; the Russians have observed the same situation using their wheeled BTR60/70/80/90 8-wheeled personnel carriers for transporting ammunition and heavy supplies in areas where overhead protection from artillery airbursts and chemical warfare agents-= their own-is critically important and cargo trucks can't be used.

So laden, the vehicles do have a lower center of gravity, making them less prone to longitudinal rollovers [though bogging down in sand, mud or snow is worsened] But once the vehicle begins that rollover process, the extra weight increases the inertia to continue the effect, and once the critical angle from which recovery is impossible is reached, over she goes.

In the case of the Stryker's RPG screen, it *might* help serve to prevent a full rollover on pavement or hardpan stone or clay, if probably not in sand, much like the rollbar of a racing car or the ROPS cage on the old M151 series jeeps.

Or it may serve as a choppper to dice any crewmembers thrown out and off, or any dismounted bystanders nearby when one goes over. It also appears that the 4-wheel front steering is a contributory factor in Stryker rollovers. And there doesn't seem to be any easy way around that.

[Travis McGee]

Funny guy.