Byler started walking back to his base when he saw a soldier collapse from shock on the side of the road. Byler and Lt. Shawn Otto, also of the 276th, put the grieving soldier on a passing pickup truck.
The 276th, with about 500 troops, had made it a year without losing a soldier and is preparing to return home in about a month.
"We almost made it. We almost made it to the end without getting somebody killed," Otto said glumly.
Insurgents have fired mortars at the chow hall more than 30 times this year. One round this summer killed a female soldier with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division as she scrambled for cover in one of the concrete bomb shelters. Workers are building a new steel and concrete chow hall for the soldiers just down the dusty dirt road.
Lt. Dawn Wheeler, a member of the 276th from Centreville, was waiting in line for chicken tenders when a round hit on the other side of a wall from her. A soldier who had been standing beside her was on the ground, struggling with shrapnel buried deep in his neck.
"We all have angels on us," she said as she pulled away in a Humvee. Wheeler quickly joined other officers from the 276th for an emergency meeting minutes after the blast.
Maj. James Zollar, the unit's acting commander, spoke to more than a dozen of his officers in a voice thick with emotion. He urged them to keep their troops focused on their missions.
"This is a tragic, tragic thing for us, but we still have missions," he told them. "It's us, the leaders, who have to pull them together."
Just hours before the blast, Zollar had awarded a Purple Heart to a soldier from the 276th who was wounded in a mortar attack on another part of the base in October.
Zollar eventually turned the emergency meeting over to Chaplain Eddie Barnett. He led the group in prayer.
"Help us now, God, in this time of this very tragic circumstance," Barnett said. "We pray for your healing upon our wounded soldiers."
With heads hung low, the soldiers trudged outside. They had work to do.
This account was distributed by the Associated Press.
