On a Hot and Dusty Road, A Young Soldier's Last Battle

Davenport, 36, of Deerfield, Va., said Lynch was normally the machine gunner on his command Humvee. But last Friday, during a day of incessant clashes that began before dawn, Davenport had pulled his vehicle close to the command post for use as a communications platform. So Lynch made himself useful by taking rotating shifts on a machine gun mounted on another Humvee posted outside the command compound.

The command post was set up in a building and surrounding compound used by agricultural officials during Saddam Hussein's rule. Davenport's team had been ordered to seize it because insurgents were using it to fire on patrols. It was one of many such spots in and around Buhriz, a hornet's nest on the edge of the agricultural hub of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province.

Even before the 1st Infantry Division pulled into this region in late March, Buhriz was a trouble spot. A combination of tribal hostility to foreigners and intricately woven loyalties to the fallen Hussein government and its Baath Party network resulted in attacks on nearly every U.S. patrol that ventured into town.

Col. Dana J.H. Pittard, who commands the division's Baqubah force, said he was determined to end that. Using a mix of economic development projects and aggressive military patrols, he made it clear to village and tribal leaders that he had money to spend on their community if they cooperated, but that attacks on U.S. forces would lead to bloody counterattacks.

A group of insurgents using Buhriz as their base made their intentions clear last week by firing rocket-propelled grenades as U.S. officers met with the mayor. So Pittard's U.S. occupation forces went into town, waited for an attack and responded hard when it came.

"We waxed them," he said in an interview.

Davenport's assignment to seize and hold the agricultural building was part of the crackdown. Because his field artillery unit had been retagged infantry to meet new needs in Iraq, Davenport said, he found himself commanding three motorized platoons with Humvees and a unit of M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles instead of an artillery battery.

As the Americans approached in those Humvees and Bradleys, Davenport said, insurgents in the house across from the agricultural building hit them with AK-47 fire, RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenades and 120mm mortar shells fired in a direct line rather than the normal high arc. Sniper fire also pinged in occasionally from what his soldiers thought were three separate locations, he added.

For most of a 120-degree day -- 14 hours straight, Davenport remembered -- the soldiers traded fire with the insurgents, including the exchange that killed Lynch. The heat, even more intense in the vehicles, drove dozens of men into the command post for intravenous injections of fluid to counteract dehydration, the medics said. At one point, a grenade launched by U.S. troops hit a nearby wall and sent chunks of concrete flying back at them, wounding one soldier in the groin.

"And while all this was going on, the guy who was direct-laying the mortars was walking the mortar rounds toward us," Davenport said.

Such missions are expected to continue for months. The U.S. military has expressed hopes of lowering its profile in Iraq after the partial transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government next week, but even so expects to continue routinely engaging in combat with insurgents.

Davenport said the clash Friday was not the worst experience he and his men had been through since arriving at Forward Operating Base Gabe, but it seemed like the longest, and for Lynch it was forever.

Empty Boots and Heavy Hearts

The soldiers of Forward Operating Base Gabe, a dusty expanse on Baqubah's outskirts, held a memorial service Tuesday to honor Lynch. A feeble breeze rasped in the eucalyptus leaves as the unit chaplain, Capt. Michael Jeffries, called attention to the grief of Lynch's family in St. Croix, and officers stepped to the podium one by one to eulogize him.

"We occupied the strong point because we knew then we would not have to chase down an elusive enemy," said the first to speak, Lt. Col. Steve Bullimore, 43, of St. Joseph, Mo. "We owe it to Jason, to his family, that his death not be in vain, that his sacrifice not in any way be diminished."