Carson loses a 'gentle giant,' three others in Afghanistan

Four Fort Carson combat engineers clearing roadside bombs died Thursday when their vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device outside Kandahar, Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have been battling Taliban fighters, the Pentagon said today.

Killed in the attack were Sgt. Glen Stivison Jr., 34, of Blairsville, Pa.; Spc. Jesus O. Flores, Jr., 28, of La Mirada, Calif.; Spc. Daniel C. Lawson, 33, of Deerfield Beach, Fla.; and Pfc. Brandon M. Styer, 19, of Lancaster, Pa. The four were serving with the 4th Engineer Battalion.

The four deaths add to what has already been one of the worst months for Fort Carson since the United States helped rout the Taliban in Afghanistan and invaded Iraq after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001.

In one week this month, the post lost 10 soldiers, including eight during a fierce daylong battle with Taliban fighters who were repulsed trying to overrun a remote outpost that American troops were set to abandon.

Stivison, a 13-year Army veteran, was a “gentle giant,” a soldier’s soldier who was also the first to “give you a hug,” said his mother-in-law, Beth Leaver, of Colorado Springs.

Flores had been in the Army for six years, while Lawson and Styer joined last year.

Stivison’s wife, Eryn, learned of her husband’s death Thursday and relatives flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware last week to bring the body back to Colorado Springs for services next week. Stivison had been married for nine years and had two sons, William Blaze, 8, and Andrew, 6.

NATO headquarters in Afghanistan said Friday that four U.S. troops died in an Oct. 15 bombing in “southern Afghanistan.” That region includes the city of Khandahar, which has been the site of a weeks-long offensive between American soldiers and Marines and Taliban militants.

Fort Carson’s 4th Engineer Battalion has been patrolling roads in that area to spot and destroy bombs and has been the target of frequent attacks and bombings.

“All we’ve been told was that he was the commander of the lead vehicle on Highway One near Kandahar when they hit an IED and they were killed instantly,” said Stivison's mother, Jan Stivison, of Blairsville.

“It was such a shock,” Leaver said. “We never worried about him, because he was in control.  He was like that in everything. I could ask him to stand on his head, and he would say, ‘Okay, mom, I’ve got it handled.’”

Stivison had been stationed in South Korea, Somalia and had twice served in Iraq. He was sent to Iraq in February before the unit was transferred to Afghanistan in May.

It was a deployment he didn’t have to accept, his mother said.

“Actually, he had a chance a couple months before they went not to go, she said. “A teaching position opened up and they offered it to him. He thought seriously about it and turned it down because one of the other soldiers just had a brand new baby and he said, you need to be home. These are my guys., I worked with them and I trained them. So he went.”

His mother-in-law urged him to be careful, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.

“When he was deployed I told him, can’t you go to the back of the line?” Leaver recalled. “And he just smiled and said ‘I would never do that.’ We are so proud of him. He is our biggest hero.”

Stivy, as he was known by family and friends, was home on leave in September. While home, “he attended all his boys’ sports events, Leaver recalled. “He was so proud of those boys. They were his life. And he spoiled my daughter like crazy.”

Stivison enjoyed going to movies, singing, fishing and hiking, and watching football.  “He was the biggest Pittsburgh Steelers fan you could ask for,” Leaver says. “We would go round and round about the Broncos.”

Eight soldiers from the engineer battalion and 30 from Fort Carson have died in Afghanistan, all since June. The post has lost 283 soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, including 10 in one week this month in the fighting in Afghanistan.

Gazette reporter Tom Roeder and Carlyn Mitchell contributed to this report