Colonel Killed in Green Zone Mortar Attack, While on Treadmill

[tekisui]

Sister says Stephen Scott on treadmill in U.S. Embassy.

When Col. Stephen Scott left for the Pentagon and later for Iraq, he never put a "For Sale" sign in the yard of his New Market home.

Scott, 54, seemed to be on the fast-track to becoming a general with his recent assignment to train and arm the Iraqi troops, said his sister, Kathleen King.

Now, his home sits empty, and his family members - all St. Louis natives - are planning his funeral after military officials told them Sunday that Scott had been killed in a mortar attack on Baghdad's Green Zone.

"He loved Alabama," King said. "That's why he never sold the house there. He fully intended to go back."

Scott, a member of the Huntsville Track Club and an avid runner, was on a treadmill in the U.S. Embassy's fitness facility Sunday when a mortar round crashed into the building, killing him and two other soldiers, King said.

"He loved to run marathons," King said. "He ran 5, 10 miles every day. If it had to be, at least he was doing something he loved and was somewhere he wanted to be."

Scott moved to Huntsville about 12 years ago when the St. Louis-based Aviation and Troop Command closed, King said. He worked with the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center on Redstone Arsenal, said his longtime friend Al Reed.

Scott served as a battalion commander in 2002 and worked with the Secretary of Defense staff to provide immediate response to soldiers' needs.

more at link: http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/120773255647960.xml&coll=1

[DS1]

1. The SAME ONE that TWO-BIT SECURITY GUARD kept the repuke off

I wonder what that shithead has to say about it now.

[Ikonoklast]

2. I want to personally thank Patrick McHenry (R-Traitor)

For giving out the intelligence that quite possibly directly lead to Col. Scotts' death.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pokercat999]

4. If Colonels continue to die we will be on the way out.

Generals and Senior Colonels aren't supposed to die in war, that's for Enlisted, Jr NCOs and below Field Grade Officers. That rear echlon isn't so far in the rear now. Could be the green zone is a green trap.

[chat_noir]

6. Colonel is only the 9th of his rank to be killed in Iraq

Family members are mourning an Army colonel who had worked at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and who is only the ninth solider of his rank to have been killed in the Iraq war.

Col. Stephen Scott died Sunday during a mortar attack on facilities inside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad, which houses the U.S. Embassy. An avid jogger, the 54-year-old Scott was killed as he exercised on a treadmill in a U.S. military facility, according to his sister, Kathleen King.

Scott is one of the highest ranking officers killed in the Iraq conflict, which has claimed the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers. Two colonels were among 12 people killed in 2007 when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed near Baghdad.

Colonel appears to be the highest rank of any U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war. According to an Associated Press database of U.S. military deaths in Iraq, at least eight other Army or Army Reserve colonels have died in the now-5-year-old war.

http://www.sunherald.com/306/story/477497.html

[Solly Mack]

5. "Scott, 54, seemed to be on the fast-track " Knowing he died on a treadmill, they just had to use

that phrase?

[Bigmack]

7. Military is eating it's own seed corn.

Have you looked at the ranks getting clipped? Lots of sergeants and majors.

This guys was headed to general.

You can bet the supply pogues and RAMFs aren't getting zapped.

Beyond the personal tragedy of this thing....the US put a lot of money into training this guy, and now.....

If we keep losing the people that should be around to run the military of the future, we may have to step back from being the most aggressive and imperialist nation on earth! Hmmmm.....

[Echo In Light]

10. Watch that anti-militarization tone now...this is DU, after all

[Muttocracy]

8. wait, was that Petraeus' job a while back - or was he training coalition? nt

[RamboLiberal]

9. Is Repuke McHenry responsible for these soldiers deaths

Pentagon has told him to pull video he shot in the green zone telling him it could be used by enemy to target mortars.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3261859

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. It's an apt metaphor for a endless war going nowhere.

[DemoTex]

12. As I learned early on in Viet Nam .. rockets and mortars are random killers.

But, God Dammit, I truly feared those MoFos. I spent too much time in flooded bunkers with cat-size rats, driven from their hidey-holes by the mortar and rocket concussions, swimming under my shivering nose.

RIP Col. Scott. Like General Bob Worley (Callsign "Strobe 01" .. shot down in an RF-4C Recce in Viet Nam) .. none are safe .. E-1 through O-10. War is, truly, HELL!

[Warren Stupidity]

13. I am sorry for the family's loss, but there is something ironic

about this. Something symbolic in this that places into sharp perspective the absolute absurdity of our vast 'little america' with its fast food joints, internet cafes, gyms, hotspots fully lit up with all the craptacular technology our end stage civilization can produce - all within this walled fortress guarded by billions of dollars worth of equipment and tens of thousands of soldiers. And outside it is the remains of a once proud second world nation that we have reduced to third world status, a seething ruined metropolis of angry desperate locals who are routinely gunned downed, taken prisoner, violated, blown up, humiliated, hopelessly outgunned and outclassed by the planet's premier military force, and yet who sometimes manage to strike back with deadly success. And there is no end. There is no amount of stuff we can ship over there, no walls thick enough or high enough, no military solution short of genocide, that will 'win' this stupid criminal mess the rotten administration in Washington quite deliberately got us into. There is no end other than to get out, but we may not have the political courage to do just that.

[lonestarnot]

14. "...Now watch this drive."