The Soldiers' Stories: 'These kids should've been home'

Nicholas Sowinski was killed in Iraq after his brigade was placed an extended deployment. Some had already returned home.

If all had gone as planned, Sgt. Nicholas Sowinski would have been home by now, his mission in Iraq complete. But now, three months after the Army’s 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team was issued an extended deployment, Sowinski is dead.

The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday officially identified Sowinski, 25, of Tempe, as the soldier who was killed early last Wednesday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb during a mounted patrol in Baghdad. The bomb injured four others, including one who was seriously hurt and taken to a hospital in Baghdad. The others are back on duty.

In July, some members of the brigade, based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska, had already returned home and others were packing their bags when they learned that their deployments were extended by up to 120 days. The order angered and saddened some of the soldiers’ families in Alaska. Since then, five soldiers in the 4,000-member combat team have died.

“These kids should’ve been home. It’s just an outrage,” said Rich Moniak, in a phone interview from Juneau, Ala- ska, whose son is a Stryker. “Until they’re home, there are other people who are going to not make it.”

Sowinski graduated from Brophy College Preparatory in 1999. Four years later, he joined the Army. In November 2003, he was assigned to Fort Wainwright, where he became a Cavalry Scout with the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

Attempts to locate Sowinski’s family were unsuccessful, but in a blog called Common Sense, a person saying he’s Sowinski’s godfather asked that Sowinski and their “huge Italian Ukrainian Catholic family” not be forgotten.

“I am writing to you because I don’t want Nick to be a statistic,” the man wrote. “I want everyone to think about a family grieving for a child, a husband, a brother, who will not come home again from war.”

The godfather describes Sowinski as “proud to be a soldier” despite a “war he saw as futile and senseless.”

Just 11 days ago, the soldier was quoted in the national media, expressing frustrations.

“There’s a lot of politics going on now and we’re a police force, not an army,” Sowinski said in an Oct. 5 story by The Associated Press. “It limits our options.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, RAlaska, said last week that she received word from Army officials that the brigade’s deployment will not be extended again, meaning the Stryker soldiers should return to Alaska by mid-December.

But this time, many of the family members of the soldiers refuse to get their hopes up.

“They are not making any plans to bring our guys home on the 15th,” said Jennifer Davis, of Anchorage, Alaska, whose husband of four years is in Iraq. “The official word they’ve given us is: Don’t make plans for your guys to come home.”

Davis remembers vividly the feeling she had the week that her husband was due home — only to find out he would have to stay in Iraq.

“Your insides are tied in knots because you don’t know if they’re dead or alive . . . or if they will come home in one piece,” said Davis, who has been married for four years. “Just when you think you see the sun rising, they drop something else in your lap.”

Both Davis and Moniak are part of the recently formed Alaska chapter of the group Military Families Speak Out. The chapter drafts letters to officials and works to gather information.

To them, Sowinski’s death is another reminder that their families should have come home, Moniak said.

“You breathe easier when you know it’s not your son, but then you feel guilty because you know someone else is going through it,” Moniak said. “They should’ve come home. They are tired.”

From the East Valley Tribune

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