Two artillerymen from a Fort Lewis Stryker brigade were killed Saturday north of Baghdad when their vehicle was struck by a bomb, the Department of Defense said Monday.

The Pentagon and Fort Lewis officials identified the soldiers as Sgt. Danny R. Soto, 24, of Houston, and Spc. Zachary A. Grass, 22, of Beach City, Ohio.

They died in Rashidiyah, east of the Tigris River from Taji, about 10 miles north of the capital.

The soldiers were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment, which is part of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Grass was a personable and popular student at Fairless High School and played on the basketball and baseball teams, his hometown newspaper Canton Repository reported Monday.

His mom and dad, Frank and Patti Grass, got the news of his death as they returned home Sunday from a Father’s Day car show.

“He was always willing to do whatever it took to help the team, a pretty selfless kid,” his basketball coach, Matt Kramer, told the newspaper.

Grass and Soto joined the Army in February 2005 and arrived at Fort Lewis the following June from basic and artillery training at Fort Sill, Okla.

Although the artillery’s formal mission in a Stryker brigade is to fire 155mm Howitzers, the brigades’ artillery units are also trained in infantry tactics and, in practice, conduct patrols and perform other missions that are typical of the infantry.

Officials did not say Monday what kind of vehicle the two men were riding in when they were struck, but most Stryker artillery troops ride in armored Humvees, not the brigades’ namesake eight-wheeled armored vehicles.

The first two Stryker brigades to go to Iraq lost no artillery soldiers during their deployments in 2003-04 and 2004-05.

Since its return to Iraq last summer, however, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has lost seven artillery soldiers, including four who were killed in a bombing of their Humvee on June 3 in Thania.

Soto and Grass are the first from the 4th Brigade’s artillery battalion to be killed since the brigade arrived in Iraq in early May for a 15-month deployment.

The brigade has lost 13 soldiers in that time.

Brigade officials have scheduled a memorial ceremony for 11 a.m. June 26 at Evergreen Chapel, where Soto, Grass and Sgt. Cory M. Endlich will be remembered. Endlich, 23, of Massillon, Ohio, was shot June 9 in Taji.

The post has also scheduled a memorial at 1 p.m. the same day at the Main Post Chapel for Cpls. Meresebang Ngiraked, from Koror in the Republic of Palau, and Llythaniele Fender of Medical Lake, Spokane County.

The 21-year-olds died June 10 in a suicide bombing at a highway bridge near Mahmudiya. They were assigned to the 5th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment.

Fort Lewis has about 11,000 soldiers deployed in Iraq, more than at any other time since the March 2003 U.S. invasion. The post has endured its most casualties over the past two months – 35 since May 6. In all, 134 Fort Lewis service members have died in the Iraq war.

Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921

mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com

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