Steven A. Davis dies 'of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with grenades'

Fort Carson lost its seventh soldier in a week to a Fourth of July grenade attack in Baghdad, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Pfc. Steven A. Davis, 23 of Woodbridge, Va., was assigned to the 2nd Brigade Combat team of the 2nd Infantry Division, the same unit of five soldiers killed in a June 28 bombing.

Davis died after his unit was ambushed by insurgents using grenades in southern Baghdad’s Rashid neighborhood, the Army said.

Davis joined the Army in September 2005 and trained as an infantryman. He arrived at Fort Carson three months later, and was assigned to the brigade’s 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.

Army sources say Davis was married. His family couldn’t be reached Thursday.

For his actions in Iraq, he’d been awarded the Bronze Star medal, the Army said.

The battalion went to Iraq last fall and has been locked in a block-by-block battle for control of neighborhoods in east Baghdad.

The Rashid neighborhood, near the brigade’s headquarters at a former Iraqi air force base, has been especially deadly in recent days, with attacks including the complex July 28 assault on a Fort Carson platoon that started with the detonation of a deeply buried bomb followed by machine gun fire and grenades.

Davis the 214th Fort Carson soldier killed since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 37th 2nd Brigade soldier to die since it arrived in Iraq in October to begin its second war tour.

In two war tours, the brigade has lost 105 soldiers.

Despite body armor and Kevlar helmets worn by all soldiers, grenades and bullets remain the second-leading cause for Fort Carson deaths in Iraq, with 64 killed. Bombs remain the leading cause with 94 dead.

From the Gazette