Kevin Joseph Smith

West Point, 2002

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by LTC DAN PINNELL on January 17, 2008:

Dana, Mr. Lowe, all Just found this site as I surfed collecting photos of the fallen from the battalion to add to those we'll use at my current organization's Artillery Ball- where we'll honor all of our fallen Artillery heroes, as we do every year. Reading Dave Lowe's comments, I had a similar experience. life was lived on pins and needles daily with 10-15 separate platoons moving like free electrons across Baghdad and beyond daily, the lives of the young men in my battalion were at hideous risk daily. as I've told others before, other units had one or two bad roads in their sector, that they transited every few days. Because their mission was to secure the movement and work of State Department and Senior leaders from DoD in and around Baghdad, Kevin and his peers "owned" and traveled every bad road in the city daily. His skill, and those of his peers meant that we had incredible success in avoiding/defeating threats to those we protected - achieving a safety and mission accomplishment record far beyond what could be hoped for under those conditions. Kevin out-thought and out fought the Iranian intelligence, Al-Quds force, and Lebanese Hezboallah mercenaries who wanted the blood of our civilian leaders, and specifically stalked us and them. Kevin and the boys personally saved the lives of over 2,300 of them - I can think of no better legacy. In fact, not one of the 60,000+ secured by he and his peers was ever harmed or killed - absolutely astounding achievement by an exceptional generation of young leaders. Fog, friction, and the enemy's vote caught up with us that day, taking Kevin, and greviously wounding several others, and was another in a long series of painful events on the "street without joy" that was Iraq in 2005. His positive attitude, superb leadership qualities, and courage spurred those around him to do better, and be better people. Dave, it moved us greatly to have you, a family member, with us at the memorial in Iraq - in fact it was critical to maintaining our sanity in a way. I and they were struggling to face the days and casualties ahead, knowing that it was unlikely that the politicians or senior guys had or would have a plan to fix the big issues and resolve the crisis any time soon. We were looking down a long tunnel with no light at the end, doing a job that mattered deeply to us, but unsure if our succceses and sacrifices would be complemented by a plan or a will to win at any other level above us. It is also incredibly damaging to the psyche not to be able to comfort the family at home except by phone- it hurts fiercely frankly. Having you there was a massive shot in my arm, and that of the boys. God bless. Dan Pinnell, Commander, 1st Battalion 76th Field Artillery Regiment, Iraq 2004-2006

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