Four Stryker troops died in war last month

Only 26, Army Spc. Clinton R. Gertson of Texas had survived a close brush with death in December, when he walked away with a minor shrapnel wound from the bomb explosion that ripped through an Army mess hall near Mosul, killing 22 people.

Sgt. Stephen R. Sherman, 27, of New Jersey walked away from the same bombing and expressed hope in e-mails to his family a month later that the Iraqi elections occurring coincidentally around his birthday might signal an end to much of the violence there.

Sgt. Frank B. Hernandez, 21, of Arizona, who gave up a chance for college to join the Army, had served in the front lines in Iraq in April 2003, and was apprehensive about returning there last October and leaving behind this time a wife and son.

Sgt. Adam Plumondore, 22, of Oregon was due to get out of the Army last October to become a police officer, before the Pentagon's stop-loss policy that freezes discharges of those bound for combat zones postponed his plans.

All four men, members of Fort Lewis' 1st Brigade, 25th Division "Stryker" brigade, were killed in Iraq in February, raising the number of military men and women with ties to this state who have been killed in Iraq since the war began March 19, 2003, to 80.

Nationally, more than 1,400 U.S. troops have been killed since then, with nearly 11,000 more wounded. The Stryker brigade alone, named for its mobile, light-armored Stryker vehicles, has lost 20 soldiers and one Air Force senior non-commissioned officer assigned to it since deploying to the war zone in October. In four months, this brigade, the second deployed to Iraq from Fort Lewis, has sustained more losses than the Stryker brigade that it replaced in October did in a year. Sherman was killed Feb. 3. Plumondore, Hernandez and Gertson were killed Feb. 16, 17 and 19, all by enemy action. The three deaths in four days filled the Stryker Brigade Web site with an outpouring of remembrances for each soldier, from loved ones, friends and complete strangers.

"Adam's journey home has begun and we will meet him in a couple of days," Plumondore's parents, Dan and Elfriede, from Gresham, Ore., wrote. "Not exactly the homecoming anyone plans ... but the one we are dealing with as best we can. Thank you again for all you were to Adam in life; for all you did for him in his hour of need; for being his family far from home; and for thinking of us at what had to be the most difficult time in your lives. "

A note for Gertson from "Cori" reads: "Clint was my brother. And what a great guy he was. I just want all of his fellow soldiers still over there to know that we are still praying for them. And also that Clint is now watching their backs like he always did."

Hernandez, meanwhile, already had tasted battle on the front lines in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, serving with an armored unit that conducted now-famous "thunder run" raids to seize Baghdad. Hernandez had seen the cost and knew the uncertainties of war. He was apprehensive about going back a second time, his cousin, Mary Lawrence of Las Cruces, N.M., told The Associated Press. Yet he went without hesitation because "serving his country and protecting his country was one of his main goals in life," she said.

Hernandez saw a life beyond the military in law enforcement, and was following in the footsteps of his older brother, Johnny, now a Glendale (Ariz.) police officer. Before leaving for Iraq, he completed one significant task toward his future, marrying his sweetheart, Cristin, last October.

Gertson and Plumondore were scouts and snipers with "Deuce-four Recon," an elite Army platoon.

Gertson "was an all-American boy who loved to hunt, fish, farm rice and run cattle," his father, Gayle, told the Houston Chronicle. "After 9/11 happened, he said he just felt he needed to go defend our country."

Plumondore also grew up hunting, often with his father, a Vietnam veteran.

Lt. Col. Michael Kurilla, the men's comander from Mosul, shared a eulogy on the Stryker Brigade Web site.

Kurilla had witnessed their courage to put themselves at risk to save others.

When a small raid became a full-fledged firefight last November against a larger force of 60 insurgents, Gertson jumped into the breech, killing about 25 of the enemy.

Last December, Plumondore rescued six wounded soldiers from a burning Stryker vehicle while also holding off the enemy with "precision fire," Kurilla said, and had volunteered to take another soldier's place on what became his final mission.