Five members of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, were killed over the weekend, according to reports released this week by the Department of Defense.
The report came just days before the division had one of its monthly ceremonies along Warriors Walk, dedicating redbud trees to soldiers killed in Iraq.
Pfc. William Edwards died on Aug. 11 in Arab Jabour, Iraq, after suffering wounds from small arms fire when insurgents attacked his unit. The 23-year-old was a native of Houston, Texas.
Four more troops in the brigade were also killed on Saturday when an improvised explosive device was detonated in the same Iraqi city.
Killed in the blast were Staff Sgt. William Scates, 31, of Oklahoma City, Okla., Sgt. Scott Kirkpatrick, 26, of Reston, Va., Sgt. Andrew Lancaster, 23, of Stockton, Ill., and Spc. Justin Penrod, 24, of Mahomet, Ill.
The soldiers’ deaths came just days after 1st Battalion’s Company A carried out a mission, nicknamed Operation Gator Aid, to secure a Saddam-era water treatment facility in Arab Jabour, according to a story released by the Multi-National Division Center Public Affairs Office.
Based on an Aug. 15 DoD casualty report, a total of 3,688 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war in Iraq.
According to icasualties.org, an independent website documenting coalition casualties throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom, American and British forces are enduring a combined average of three troop deaths per day so far in August.
Initiated in March 2003, OIF is part of the Bush Administration’s ongoing “War on Terror” campaign in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
The report came just days before the division had one of its monthly ceremonies along Warriors Walk, dedicating redbud trees to soldiers killed in Iraq.
Pfc. William Edwards died on Aug. 11 in Arab Jabour, Iraq, after suffering wounds from small arms fire when insurgents attacked his unit. The 23-year-old was a native of Houston, Texas.
Four more troops in the brigade were also killed on Saturday when an improvised explosive device was detonated in the same Iraqi city.
Killed in the blast were Staff Sgt. William Scates, 31, of Oklahoma City, Okla., Sgt. Scott Kirkpatrick, 26, of Reston, Va., Sgt. Andrew Lancaster, 23, of Stockton, Ill., and Spc. Justin Penrod, 24, of Mahomet, Ill.
The soldiers’ deaths came just days after 1st Battalion’s Company A carried out a mission, nicknamed Operation Gator Aid, to secure a Saddam-era water treatment facility in Arab Jabour, according to a story released by the Multi-National Division Center Public Affairs Office.
Based on an Aug. 15 DoD casualty report, a total of 3,688 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war in Iraq.
According to icasualties.org, an independent website documenting coalition casualties throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom, American and British forces are enduring a combined average of three troop deaths per day so far in August.
Initiated in March 2003, OIF is part of the Bush Administration’s ongoing “War on Terror” campaign in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.