Posted on 04/09/2008 6:04:57 PM PDT by RDTF
A St. Louis-born U.S. Army colonel was killed in Iraq Sunday, according to his sister, Kathleen King of OFallon.
Col. Stephen K. Scott, 54, was serving at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad where he was working with Iraqi leaders on weapons intelligence and defense. Scott, who was an avid runner, was in the workout facilities in the green zone when he was killed during a mortar attack, King said.
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After basic training, Stephen Scott worked at the Army Aviation and Troop Command facility on Goodfellow Boulevard in St. Louis until it was closed in 1997. He then moved to Huntsville, Ala., where he served at the Armys Redstone Arsenal facility.
In Huntsville he kept a large collection of cars and motorcycles. From the time he was young he loved to drive his cars fast, family members said. By October 2005, he was in Washington, D.C., working at the Pentagon.
Family members last saw Stephen Scott during Thanksgiving. He left for his second tour in Iraq a few weeks later.
"He was proud of his work," King said. "Proud of how the Iraqis were responding to him, proud of the Iraqi friends he had made."
Scotts family kept in touch with him almost daily by phone, a luxury not all military families have, King said. For a long time, all of his news from Iraq was good, she said. He was doing well. But in the past few weeks, she said, he told her everyone was in full bulletproof attire because of a series of missile attacks on the green zone.
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Stephen Scott was scheduled to retire from active duty in June and return home just in time for his grandson Dylans first birthday.
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(Excerpt) Read more at stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com ...
There are none of these losses that don’t break you heart. Not a single one.
I heard the Embassy is beautiful.
Prayers going up for his family and friends...
Soldiers are called to defend.
I quietly Thank God for each one.
Amen. :(
I so agree. And this one was particularly bad. I was in a building 50 yards away when this happened. They're not mentioning the name of the base in the Green Zone where it happened, so I'd better not, but it's where I work when I have to go to the GZ.
COL Scott was a good guy and a couple members of his team are good friends of mine.
I despise Muqtada al Sadr.
The current one is in what was Saddam's Presidential Palace and it's certainly an interesting building. The opulence is still evident and they've kept a lot of the furniture and artwork in there.
The new one, due to open next year is just HUGE. I've ridden past it and it just goes on and on and on...
The building where this sad incident happened is not on the Embassy grounds, but it is in the general vicinity.
May the Angel of the Lord encamp about you tonite, soldier.
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