Carson soldier killed when patrol hits roadside bomb

His unit has sustained fort's biggest losses

Tom Roeder, The Gazette

Published October 16, 2007 at midnight

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A Fort Carson soldier has died in a Baghdad bombing, the Pentagon announced Monday.

Pfc. Kenneth J. Iwasinski, 22, of West Springfield, Mass., was killed Sunday when his patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.

Iwasinski's father, who spoke to his son by phone just hours earlier, said the young soldier was in Iraq because he wanted to serve his country.

"He was the kind of guy where if you asked him to borrow $10 and he only had $7, he would go around trying to get you the other $3," said Dominick Iwasinski, in a telephone interview from his home in Belchertown, Mass.

Kenneth Iwasinski was serving in Iraq with Fort Carson's 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division, which is a year into a 15-month deployment.

In recent weeks, the unit has focused on training Iraqi police and providing blanket security to several neighborhoods on Baghdad's east side.

In a news release, the Army described Iwasinski's last mission as "targeted raids and clearing operations in order to disrupt insurgent and criminal militia elements."

Iwasinski joined the Army in 2006 after obtaining a general equivalency diploma. After training as an infantryman, he was sent to Fort Carson, where he stayed just three months before going to Iraq with the brigade.

Iwasinski talked with his father by phone frequently and told him that he was adjusting to Army life and believed working to secure Iraq was the right thing to do.

It was no surprise that he believed in the cause, his father said. He had joined the Army and picked the infantry with the expressed desire to fight in Iraq.

"Kenny was always that way," his father said. "His heart was bigger than his head. He led with his heart."

Iwasinski's 2nd Brigade has made the biggest sacrifice of any Fort Carson unit in Iraq, with 109 of its soldiers killed, including 41 since the unit returned to Iraq for its second tour in 2006.

Since the Iraq war began in 2003, 223 Fort Carson soldiers have been killed, including 98 felled by bombing attacks.

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