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Unit Ponders the Hard Lessons of Loss
Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division attend a memorial for Sgt. Raymond S. Sevaaetasi, 29, the ninth member of the unit killed since March 15.
(By David Finkel -- The Washington Post)
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Four soldiers died instantly -- Staff Sgt. Blake M. Harris, 27; Staff Sgt. Terry W. Prater, 25; Sgt. Emerson N. Brand, 29; and Pfc. James L. Arnold, 21. Two other soldiers -- Sgt. Ryan P. Green, 24, and Sgt. Nicholas J. Lightner, 29 -- were severely wounded but were saved when another soldier, Spec. James J. Coon, ran to them with tourniquets as a call went out for medics.
The following day, Sauer said, Lightner was in a hospital, talking and joking, and soon after was airlifted to Germany, as was Green, who was semiconscious and had lost much of his right leg.
Then came word on March 18 that Green had died.
Which was followed by word that on March 21 Lightner had died.
Which was followed 13 days later by the death of Pfc. Gabriel J. Figueroa, 20, who was killed on April 3 by a sniper.
Followed a day later by the death of Coon, 22 -- the soldier who had tried to save Green and Lightner -- who, according to Sauer, "was the gunner in an up-armor Humvee, and a bunch of kids were coming up, like they always do, and Coon stood up to tell them to move away, and as he did a shot rang out and hit him right in the head."
Followed by the death on April 11 of Sevaaetasi, who died instantly when his Humvee was destroyed by an EFP.
Nine deaths in the past 32 days: "Each one hurts," Sauer said in his office before Sevaaetasi's ceremony, choking up at times. "It hurts as much with the ninth one as it did with the first. I guess what changes with the numbers is the level of shock. There's a different level of maturity, and I guess wisdom."
He picked up nine files, each a lesson about what the escalation has meant. One interpretation, he said, is that the escalation strategy is working, because unlike the first fatality, which remains unsolved, tips have come in about who planted the bombs and shot the rifles that killed the nine, resulting in multiple arrests. Those tips, Sauer said, are a direct result of his solders' increased presence. He doubts there would have been such tips before the escalation began.
But the other interpretation is within the files themselves. "Look at these kids," he said, opening them and going through them one by one. Arnold: "A great kid." Green: "Had a fiancee." Brand: "Four hundred push-ups, 400 sit-ups." Prater: "Frigging Silver Star winner."
He put the folders away, apologized for crying, worked on a speech for Sevaaetasi, and then it was time to go to the chapel, which, like every other building on the 1-8's Forward Operating Base, is surrounded by blast walls. There are blast walls surrounding where soldiers eat, where they sleep, where they go to the bathroom, and on this night, where they went to once again memorialize the dead.
"I remember him for being an all-around good guy," one of Sevaaetasi's eulogists said.
