Allow me to ramble a bit here.
I first met Mark when I showed up to my first duty station, Ft Riley, KS, as a newly commissioned second lieutenant straight out of the Armor Basic Course. It was Feb 2003 and I was basically told not to unpack because we were getting ready to leave for Kuwait for the build up of the initial invasion of Iraq.
I was assigned as a tank platoon leader and within a few weeks we were off to Kuwait. Mark at the time was the Battalion S4 - the logistics officer. Basically in charge of making sure everyone had bullets, food and fuel for our vehicles. He was a Clemson alumni and we quickly struck up a friendship over our shared love of college football. He was a great resource for me as a guy a little bit more senior and experienced who I used as a mentor outside my specific chain of command.
Flash forward to the spring of 2004 and we are alerted that we are going back to Iraq because things there are going to hell in a handbasket rather quickly (our initial deployment lasted until July 2003 when we came back stateside). Mark had orders at that point to go serve as a Company Commander in the Honor Guard at Arlington - a pretty awesome assignment for a company commander. He voluntarily chose to have those orders delayed so he could deploy with us a H&HC Commander (the company commander for all the support services and specialty platoons within the battalion). We arrived in June 2004 to Sadr City which was in open rebellion at that point against coalition forces. We endured about 75 days of consistent combat - IEDS, RPGs, mortars, small arms fire. All guerilla tactics with the attackers quickly blending back into the city population. It was a rough time for all us.
In Nov of 2004, I was promoted and put in charge of the scout platoon which is probably the best job you can have as a platoon leader. Plus it meant Mark would be my company commander. Within about 2 weeks of taking over the scout platoon, Mark informed me that he would be going on patrol with me in Sadr City. He was itching to get off the FOB and wanted to see how I was integrating into the new platoon and how they were responding to me as their leader. We stopped at a gas station that we know the Sadr militia would shake down for funds. We were there for about 90 mins making sure the residents could get their gas for cars, cooking, etc. I decided we needed to move on because we had been in one place too long. I walked back to my Humvee to use the radio to call in our security OPs and alert higher HQs that we would be on the move again. As I was on the radio I heard a distinctive shot ring out (definitely not an AK). I looked up and saw Mark stagger back a step before falling to the ground. I immediately ran to him arriving about the same time as our medic. We quickly realized he had been shot in the left side of his chest and was in bad shape. He was struggling to breathe and lost consciousness as we assessed him. As we went to load him into our vehicles to evac him to a higher level of care, we came under AK and RPG fire. This was a complex ambush and we were taking fire from multiple sides. We quickly got Mark into the humvee and headed for the FOB while returning fire on our attackers. We got him to the battalion aid station and turned him over to the medics. I went back out to start regrouping with my platoon when I saw the Medevac bird come in. It quickly took off again without anyone going out to it.
At this point out battalion doc came out and gave me the news. My friend, Mark Stubenhofer, died on Dec 7, 2004.
He was survived by his wife and 3 children. His youngest daughter, Hope, was born while we were deployed so he never got to meet her in person.
Please take a moment for Mark and all the others like him that never got to come home.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
I first met Mark when I showed up to my first duty station, Ft Riley, KS, as a newly commissioned second lieutenant straight out of the Armor Basic Course. It was Feb 2003 and I was basically told not to unpack because we were getting ready to leave for Kuwait for the build up of the initial invasion of Iraq.
I was assigned as a tank platoon leader and within a few weeks we were off to Kuwait. Mark at the time was the Battalion S4 - the logistics officer. Basically in charge of making sure everyone had bullets, food and fuel for our vehicles. He was a Clemson alumni and we quickly struck up a friendship over our shared love of college football. He was a great resource for me as a guy a little bit more senior and experienced who I used as a mentor outside my specific chain of command.
Flash forward to the spring of 2004 and we are alerted that we are going back to Iraq because things there are going to hell in a handbasket rather quickly (our initial deployment lasted until July 2003 when we came back stateside). Mark had orders at that point to go serve as a Company Commander in the Honor Guard at Arlington - a pretty awesome assignment for a company commander. He voluntarily chose to have those orders delayed so he could deploy with us a H&HC Commander (the company commander for all the support services and specialty platoons within the battalion). We arrived in June 2004 to Sadr City which was in open rebellion at that point against coalition forces. We endured about 75 days of consistent combat - IEDS, RPGs, mortars, small arms fire. All guerilla tactics with the attackers quickly blending back into the city population. It was a rough time for all us.
In Nov of 2004, I was promoted and put in charge of the scout platoon which is probably the best job you can have as a platoon leader. Plus it meant Mark would be my company commander. Within about 2 weeks of taking over the scout platoon, Mark informed me that he would be going on patrol with me in Sadr City. He was itching to get off the FOB and wanted to see how I was integrating into the new platoon and how they were responding to me as their leader. We stopped at a gas station that we know the Sadr militia would shake down for funds. We were there for about 90 mins making sure the residents could get their gas for cars, cooking, etc. I decided we needed to move on because we had been in one place too long. I walked back to my Humvee to use the radio to call in our security OPs and alert higher HQs that we would be on the move again. As I was on the radio I heard a distinctive shot ring out (definitely not an AK). I looked up and saw Mark stagger back a step before falling to the ground. I immediately ran to him arriving about the same time as our medic. We quickly realized he had been shot in the left side of his chest and was in bad shape. He was struggling to breathe and lost consciousness as we assessed him. As we went to load him into our vehicles to evac him to a higher level of care, we came under AK and RPG fire. This was a complex ambush and we were taking fire from multiple sides. We quickly got Mark into the humvee and headed for the FOB while returning fire on our attackers. We got him to the battalion aid station and turned him over to the medics. I went back out to start regrouping with my platoon when I saw the Medevac bird come in. It quickly took off again without anyone going out to it.
At this point out battalion doc came out and gave me the news. My friend, Mark Stubenhofer, died on Dec 7, 2004.
He was survived by his wife and 3 children. His youngest daughter, Hope, was born while we were deployed so he never got to meet her in person.
Please take a moment for Mark and all the others like him that never got to come home.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
