FORT CARSON — An Iraq-bound brigade of combat soldiers rolled up and wrapped their golden-tasseled flags Wednesday in a ceremony marking their readiness for war.
Nicknamed the Warhorse Brigade, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division is expected to deploy over the next month for a one-year tour south of Baghdad and in northern Iraq near Kirkuk — an infusion of more than 3,000 troops charged with helping Iraqis target terrorists, commanders said.
Spouses, children and fellow soldiers watched silently as about 480 members from six battalions assembled on damp, freshly cut grass beneath Cheyenne Mountain, south of Colorado Springs. “Our soldiers roar for freedom,” the soldiers sang, raising fists. “We’re fit for any test.”
A majority have served in Iraq before. This will be the brigade’s third deployment to Iraq, and some soldiers are heading into their fourth stint since the U.S. invasion in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Others such as Pfc. George Day, 19, an artilleryman, face their first military action. Day slumped on bleachers with his wife, Kayla, 18, who is 7 1/2 months pregnant with their first child, a son.
Day has requested permission to delay his deployment until the baby is born. “I want to be there,” he said. But that appeared “still up in the air.”
The last he heard he must stay with his unit, which raised other concerns.
He and others in his squad “don’t know where we are going, what we are doing. They haven’t given us the mission, anything,” Day said. “I just wish we knew.”
Some 240 soldiers from Fort Carson have been killed in Iraq since 2003.
Brigade commander Col. Butch Kievenaar addressed the soldiers from a podium.
He declared them “the true heroes of this generation . . . who are doing the hard work” of carrying out the wishes of the United States.
Their purpose will be “to continue to improve the security situation in Iraq” and thereby help Iraqis govern themselves, he said, calling this mission “right and just.”
Bruce Finley: 303.954.1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com
