Seattle Times:Accident in Iraq kills three Ft. Lewis soldiers

Three soldiers from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade died last night in north-central Iraq when the collapse of a roadside embankment sent two of their vehicles tumbling into an irrigation canal, according to Army officials.

It's a sober start for the brigade that arrived in Iraq only a few days ago for a 12-month tour of duty with its armored, eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles. These are the first new Army fighting vehicles in 20 years and have been assigned to combat patrols north of Baghdad, where the insurgency movement is strongest.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001810892_stryker09m.html

I told my best friend, whos in the gaurd (but were getting him out), that he'll be hearing a lot more about these POS pipedream strykers once they get over there...think conversation had something to do with pork barrel spending and defense contractors, the true benificiaries of war. Oh well....looks like it started. A sardine can with a mounted gun (which can not fire on the sides for fear of rolling the stryker over) that goes 60 MPH is still a sardine can. Thanks for your lightweight quick military rummy.


Hrm...will this be our generations M-16 in terms of contributing to the bodycount, if you know what I mean?


on edit: This may have nothing to do with the lightarmored stryker, but again, it could have everything to do with it. They may of been shooting at a 6-year old picking flowers, which caused the damn thing to roll over sideways off the embankment. Who knows....war is hell. Dead is still dead.

That's why it was so controversial, its cheaper to build and maintain than the Bradleys and Abrams - this was Gen. Shinseki's project, he wanted to do away with big, expensive, impractical $7 million battle tanks.

Only pressure from Congress, not the military, kept this project alive. IMO, the Stryker will be a terrible failure. I don't care how cheap it is if it doesn't protect our troops. I'm not the biggest fan of the Bradley, but I would MUCH rather be a grunt inside a Bradley, or even an M113A3 than inside a Stryker. Not enough armor on the Stryker. The US should have copied the BMP3 for a infantry fighting vehicle. The high-profile Stryker might have a place somewhere, but it's not in Baghdad taking RPG rounds. Just MHO.

for my stepson, who is NOW being told he is being dragged away from us on Dec 21....(they said Jan 4th, now its changed to Dec 21)...
No other information TO THE FAMILIES OF THE UNIT....we get Zilch...we wont even get a Holiday with him...No one recieves any information, we are in the dark.
Every day, and the media whores and rah rah faux patriots keep waving their flags like it was a football game while our children die daily.

it looks to me as if there is a unit in Iraq that is due for rotation that is in such poor shape psychologically that the military braintrust is afraid of the consequences if they don't get them home for the holidays. Good luck to your stepson.

The bad drivers are once more showing up in the body bags. I wonder about all this.It slowed down for a while but it is now back.

I remember Tacoma well.

Things will change when Dean takes office.

...just like all of those helicopter "accidents".