Army Sgt. Bryce D. Howard

Died August 28, 2007 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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24, of Vancouver, Wash.; assigned to Headquarters Support Company, 864th Engineer Battalion, 555th Engineer Brigade, Fort Lewis, Wash.; died Aug. 28 in Jaji, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device. Also killed were Sgt. 1st Class Rocky H. Herrera and Sgt. Cory L. Clark.

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Bombing kills three Fort Lewis soldiers in Afghanistan

The Associated Press

FORT LEWIS, Wash. — Three soldiers killed in a suicide bombing as they helped build a bridge in Afghanistan were identified Aug. 30 as members of a unit from this Army post south of Tacoma.

Sgt. 1st Class Rocky H. Herrera, 43, of Salt Lake City; Sgt. Cory L. Clark, 25, of Plant City, Fla.; and Sgt. Bryce D. Howard, 24, of Vancouver, Wash., members of the 864th Engineer Battalion, 555th Engineer Brigade, died Aug. 28 in the attack in Jaji in eastern Afghanistan, military officials said.

Herrera and Clark were members of the battalion’s 585th Engineer Pipeline Company and Howard was in the Headquarters Support Company. The battalion has been in Afghanistan since March.

Herrera, a construction equipment supervisor, entered military service Aug. 25, 1986, and his current term of active service began in April 1996.

He previously was with the 38th Engineer Company in Hanau, Germany; the 31st Maintenance Company at Fort Irwin, Calif.; and with the 5th Engineer Battalion and later the 577th Engineer Battalion as an instructor in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., before being assigned to Fort Lewis on Aug. 14, 2005.

Clark, a general construction equipment operator who had been deployed twice to Iraq, called home a few days before his death to say he had been promoted to sergeant, his mother, Wrenita Codrington, told WTVT Television in Tampa.

He enlisted in the Army just after graduating from Durant High School in 2001, fed up with working in a grocery store freezer, Codrington said.

“He joined the military, saying, ‘I’d rather get a little dirty than a lot cold all the time,”’ Codrington said.

After Clark’s first tour in Iraq, he returned home to marry his high school sweetheart and they had three children before he was sent to Iraq a second time, his mother said.

Howard, a technical engineer, entered the military on Jan. 16, 2002, underwent basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, then spent a year at Camp Henry, South Korea, before reporting to Fort Lewis on Aug. 19, 2003.