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Monday, September 5, 2005
Soldier returns from leave to grieve for two more comrades
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forward Operating Base Michael, Iraq — During his short two weeks leave at home in Georgia, Spc. Robert Shea attended a solemn memorial service for his friend, Spc. Michael Stokely.
“It’s not something you expect to happen while you are at home,” he said, waiting for a Black Hawk helicopter to ferry him from Baghdad back to FOB Michael.
Moni Basu/AJC
108th Armor Regiment’s Command Sgt. Maj. Tony Gayton remembers fallen comrades.
Shea returned from Kuwait knowing he would again be paying last respects to another two soldiers from his unit, Echo Troop, 108th Cavalry Regiment. The unit is attached to the 108th Armor Regiment and has been operating under austere conditions from FOB Michael and another base in the nearby town of Yusifiyah.
Stokely, 23, of Loganville died three weeks ago when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee. Staff Sgt. Robert Lee Hollar, 35, of Thomaston and Sgt. George Ray Draughn, 29, of Hiram were killed Thursday in another roadside bomb attack near Mahmudiyah, an area south of Baghdad that has proven especially hostile for U.S. soldiers.
It was hard enough for Shea, a 25-year-old Locust Grove cable installer who wants to join the Henry County police force one day, to be returning to Iraq. In Kuwait, he got the bad news about the latest deaths.
“It made me feel kind of weak in the knees,” he said. “It’s tough to come back to something like this. They were really cool guys.”
Hollar and Draughn were remembered Monday in the same kind of military service that 16 other soldiers from the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team have received in Iraq.
But behind the symbolic helmets, upended rifles, boots and dog tags, were two more men from Georgia, each with their own story to tell, each with grieving families who will never see their loved ones again.
“We are sad today because we miss the companionship of these two great soldiers,” said Lt. Col John King, the Doraville police chief who commands the 108th Armor Regiment. “It’s because of soldiers like these that we are the strongest nation in the world.”
Soldiers grieved openly for the comrades they lost, wiping tears and clutching each other while the sounds of “Amazing Grace” filled the vehicle maintenance bay.
Among the more distraught was Sgt. Cleveland Carter, who had been out on the patrol Thursday with Draughn and Hollar. He was in an M1A1 Abrams tank following their vehicle. Draughn and Carter had known each other for five years. They went to Cancun together during time off before the brigade deployed to the Middle East in May.
“I’ve seen people hurt like that before, but never anyone so close,” said Carter, 41, a police officer at Clark Atlanta University. “It’s so hard.”
Later, the anger set in.
“I wanted to go to the hospital and shoot the doctors who could not save him. We put them on that bird alive.”
Draughn and Hollar were taken by helicopter to the Combat Surgical Hospital in central Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, where they died from injuries suffered in the blast. Two other soldiers in the Humvee were also injured.
After Stokely’s death, it had been Draughn that had held the soldiers together. Carter said Draughn had acted as counselor for his platoon. Draughn was the one who led prayer before a mission.
“I found myself spending a lot of time outside my tent,” Carter said. “Draughn had the first bunk on the left. I’m the second. It was too hard to walk by.”
