Camp Liberty soldiers hit hard by friends’ deaths (Kenneth Cross, Dan Dolan)

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq — Spc. Kenneth Cross was a tall, lanky 21-year-old soldier who dreamed of getting out of the Army and starting a family with his young bride.

Pfc. Daniel Dolan, 19, loved apple-flavored chewing tobacco and talked incessantly of his snowboarding exploits and what he described as “the only girlfriend I need”: his Subaru STi sports car.

On Sunday, both were killed in a complex, coordinated attack in northwestern Baghdad.

They were members of 3rd Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, a Fort Lewis, Wash.-based part of the 2nd Infantry Division. According to Army records, Cross was a native of Superior, Wis.; Dolan was from Roy, Utah.

Both were posthumously promoted — Cross to corporal, Dolan to specialist. They were the first casualties for the battalion since it arrived in Iraq in early August to participate in Operation Together Forward, a mission to reduce sectarian violence in Baghdad.

Read the rest at Stars and Stripes