Maine sergeant builds shrine in Iraq
Tribute set at hub of search for soldiers
QUARGHULI, Iraq -- The shrine is just some sheets of plywood and a couple of two-by-fours.
The carpenter who lovingly built it, Sergeant Curtis Dorr, wishes it could be grander -- perhaps some pieces of felt to hide the knotholes or some trim to make it a more fitting tribute for a Memorial Day ceremony.
Nailed to the wood are the photos of five US soldiers and one Iraqi soldier who died this month following an ambush south of Baghdad, as well as two other Americans killed in December.
Dorr, 38, of Troy, Maine, touched each of the framed pictures and remembered his fallen friends from Delta Company, Fourth Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment.
"They were just kids," he said, thinking about Sergeant Anthony Schober, 23, of Reno . "Just kids."
Then he turned to the photo of Sergeant First Class James D. Connell Jr., 40, of Lake City, Tenn.
"Sergeant First Class Connell has four kids," Dorr added. "Such a waste."
Two other soldiers remain missing from the May 12 ambush -- Specialist Alex R. Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., and Private Byron W. Fouty, 19, of Waterford, Mich. -- and the search for them goes on, although the pace has slowed a bit.
Long gone are the extra cooks and translators brought into this villa-turned-outpost to handle the influx of extra troops brought in for the search.
Still, the soldiers set out daily in this Sunni-dominated hamlet, wearing 72 pounds of body armor and a full combat load in 115-degree temperatures to follow any lead. Last week, Iraqi police found the body of Private First Class Joseph J. Anzack Jr., 20, of Torrance, Calif., floating in the Euphrates River.
"The guys that we lost, we remember them, and that's what pretty much drives us every day, " said Private First Class Samuel Rhodes, 25, of Albuquerque . "The day that they died, that totally broke my heart. It angered me. It made me want to fight twice as hard."
It also has been rough Memorial Day weekend for the platoon leader, Lieutenant Morgan Spring-Glace, 25, of Worcester, Mass. His job is to write the letters to the families of his men, but he is struggling with that task.
"I never thought I'd be in a situation like this," he said, adding that the deaths have not fully sunk in for some.
"One of my men said to me . . . as we were coming back from this mission that, 'It's like they could come back any time, you know?' I know the feeling," Spring-Glace said. "It's like you can just press the button and go back to the way it was."
He remembered the personalities of his fallen comrades -- how Schober, who was turning into "a really good squad leader," could not be understood when talking on the radio. "He sounded like Sylvester Stallone."
Or how Private First Class Christopher E. Murphy, 21, of Lynchburg, Va., loved computer games, which could be a problem with a balky generator that sometimes broke down.
He thought about how Private First Class Daniel W. Courneya, 19, of Nashville, Mich., who was posthumously promoted to specialist, had just received a care package from his wife -- and one item inside was a baseball cap.
"I was glad that at least Sergeant Connell had just gotten back from leave and he had just seen his children," Spring-Glace said.
Amid the somber Memorial Day weekend for the company, there was still a job to do. The soldiers laced up their boots -- still wet from the day before -- and put back on their sweat-stained uniforms. Then they headed back out into the tall reeds and palm groves to try to find their two missing friends. 