7 of 11 25th Division troops
still hospitalized in IraqSeven of the 11 soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division injured Tuesday night in a rocket attack on their housing complex in Kirkuk Air Base in Iraq are still being treated for shrapnel wounds.
Maj. Scott Halstead, Army spokesman in Kirkuk, said last night that the rocket attack occurred at 8:10 p.m. Tuesday Iraqi time (7:10 a.m. Monday Hawaii time) at Forward Operating Base Warrior near the Kirkuk Air Base. The airfield was hit with a 107 mm rocket.
As is the case with all combat injuries, the Army declined to identify the soldiers or the extent of their wounds and was able to release only a partial listing of the units the soldiers came from. One soldier is a member of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Field Artillery; seven were from the 65th Engineer Battalion; and one is from the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry (Wolfhounds).
Halstead said all of the wounds were from shrapnel but were not life-threatening.
Halstead said four of the injured soldiers were taken to a hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, two others remain hospitalized at Kirkuk, one to a different hospital in Iraq, and four have returned to duty.
All 11 soldiers were initially sent to the 67th Combat Support Hospital at Forward Operating Base Spei cher near Tikrit.
The soldiers were part of the 4,000-member task force from Schofield Barracks that left here in late January for a year-long deployment in Iraq.
On March 15 the 1st Infantry Division assumed command of northern Iraq as Task Force Danger. Members include the 4,000 soldiers of the 25th Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, who were previously assigned to the 4th Infantry Division.
The following day, a patrol of soldiers from 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, found a cache of anti-aircraft weapons in Kirkuk, the Army said. The cache was transported to the 2nd Brigade for destruction.
The Tropic Lightning Division’s first fatality occurred March 18 when Pfc. Ernest Sutphin, 21, of Parkersburg, W.Va., was taken off life support in an Army hospital in Germany.
He was one of seven soldiers riding in a Humvee during a patrol in Al Hawija on March 11 when the vehicle rolled into a canal. He was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 11th Field Artillery.