Army Col. Stephen K. Scott

Remember Our Heroes

Army Col. Stephen K. Scott, 54, of New Market, Ala.

Col. Scott was assigned to the 356th Quartermaster Battalion, Laurel, Miss.; died April 6, 2008 in Baghdad of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with indirect fire. Also killed was Maj. Stuart A. Wolfer.

St. Louis-area soldier killed in Iraq
The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS — A 54-year-old Army soldier who grew up in St. Louis was killed by mortar fire in Baghdad, the Defense Department said.

Family members of Col. Stephen Scott said military officials notified them Sunday night that he had been killed earlier that day in the city’s Green Zone.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday that Scott was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad overseeing the transition of security forces to the Iraqi government. He had been working at the Pentagon in recent years after growing up in the St. Louis area.

The newspaper reported that Scott was exercising in the protected Green Zone when the building was struck by mortar fire and he was killed.

Scott received the Bronze Star in 2003 for his service as a battalion commander during a previous tour in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense.

Scott was working to help equip the Iraqi army, according to the transcript of a February teleconference posted on a Department of Defense Web site. He said he had been struck by the positive relationships he had established with Iraqis in a short amount of time.

Scott said in the transcript that he had “spent the last two and a half years up in Washington doing what I thought was important for the U.S. forces, but having come over here and spending a lot of time with my partners in the Iraqi army, I’m 100 percent behind what we’re doing. They’re on track. They’re on schedule. Their hearts are in the right places.”

Funeral plans and the return of Scott’s remains are still pending. Family members say he will be buried at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.

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. At least one of those was promoted to that rank posthumously.

“Every one of our service members’ lives are equally precious,” said Maj. Brad Leighton, a military spokesman in Baghdad.

Scott was assigned to the 356th Quartermaster Battalion in Laurel, Miss., which was disbanded in September and its members dispersed, the military said. Messages left at Army Reserve Command in Atlanta were not returned Tuesday evening.

Army Col. Stephen K. Scott was killed in action on 4/6/08.