The News Tribune (Lite) - Long military careers come to sad end

TheNewsTribune.com
Section: Stryker Brigade

Long military careers come to sad end

MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune
As one Fort Lewis Stryker brigade welcomes its soldiers home from 15 months in Iraq, another carries on with the solemn task of honoring its dead.

The 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division paid its respects Wednesday to two senior sergeants who were the most recent to have been lost in the brigade’s six months in Iraq.

Sgt. 1st Class Daniel E. Scheibner and Sgt. 1st Class David A. Cooper Jr. were remembered as skilled soldiers and influential leaders.

Hundreds attended Wednesday’s memorial ceremony at Evergreen Chapel, across the post from the gym where the evening before hundreds of families had welcomed home their soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division.

Scheibner, 40, of Muskegon, Mich., was killed Aug. 30 in Al Noor when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. He was a platoon sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment.

Cooper, 36, of State College, Pa., died Sept. 5 in a noncombat-related incident in Baghdad that brigade officials said remains under investigation. Cooper was a platoon sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment.

Both men “were treasures to us, in and out of uniform, and destined to long careers as soldiers,” said Maj. Chad Sundem, the brigade’s rear detachment commander.

As it was, Cooper served four years in the Army Reserve, then 15 on active duty, spending the better part of 10 years at Fort Lewis. Scheibner served 20 years and fought in the first Gulf War.

Cooper started out in supply but switched to become a tanker and led a platoon of Mobile Gun System Strykers – the ones with the 105 mm cannon.

He had a standing boast to all the other MGS gunners: outshoot him and he’d buy that crew a new pair of tanker boots.

In their weeks of preparations at the Yakima Training Center, he never once had to pay up, said 1st Sgt. Nicholas Pingel.

Staff Sgt. Eric Richardson noted that platoon sergeants are often referred to as “platoon daddies” – almost like a father figure to as many as 40 men in their unit.

“They’re always looking out for the soldiers in their platoon, giving them feedback and advice,” he said. “Sergeant Cooper was one of those platoon daddies.”

Cooper is survived by his wife, Michelle; sons Gage and Drake; his brother, Michael; and his parents, David and Wanda Cooper.

Capt. Jay Ross said he served 15 months with Scheibner, a platoon leader in the artillery battalion. Before they left for Iraq, Scheibner was offered the chance to move up to a senior position in the battalion headquarters – a job that would have ensured a promotion and been much safer because it would rarely require him to go off the operating base.

But he chose to remain as platoon sergeant and to conduct daily missions.

“He felt like he would have been abandoning his platoon at a time they would need him most,” Ross said, “and he didn’t want to leave me. We were a team, and we had always said we were going to deploy together, just like we had trained for over the past year.

“He always put the needs of others ahead of his own. He knew the platoon needed him, that the battery needed him, and that I needed him, so he stayed.”

Scheibner is survived by his wife, Ann; their 12-year-old son, Tyler; and his mother, Louise.

The 4th Brigade, which left Fort Lewis in April as part of the surge of U.S. forces in Iraq, has lost 21 soldiers in its nearly six months in combat. The brigade is due to remain in Iraq another nine months, with an anticipated return to Fort Lewis sometime in June.

With Tuesday’s arrivals, the 3rd Brigade now has about 2,000 of its 3,800 soldiers home, with the rest due in flights over the next several days.