Two Iowa National Guard soldiers killed in a shooting attack in Syria have been identified as Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Grimes. Both were members of the 113th Cavalry Regiment, part of the 34th Infantry Division. The attack also claimed the life of an American civilian contractor who was serving as an interpreter, while three additional Iowa Guard soldiers were wounded, two seriously enough to require medical evacuation. The shooting occurred amid the deployment of roughly 1,800 Iowa Army National Guard troops to the Middle East earlier this year as part of an ongoing mission to work with local forces against the Islamic State, with about 250 of those troops stationed in Syria among approximately 1,000 U.S. personnel in the country.
Family members were notified over the weekend, and tributes quickly followed. Sgt. Howard’s stepfather, Meskwaki Nation Police Chief Jeffrey Bunn, described the loss as the kind of notification no military family ever wants to receive, remembering Howard as deeply committed to his mission and to his fellow soldiers. Howard had served in the Guard for more than a decade and had planned to complete a full 20-year career. Sgt. Torres Tovar was remembered by Guard leadership as a dedicated professional and valued member of the unit. Iowa National Guard officials said the two represented the best of the state’s service members. The gunman responsible for the attack was later killed by Syrian security forces, and President Donald Trump said the United States would retaliate against the Islamic State. The deaths mark the first U.S. military casualties in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last year and the first overseas combat deaths involving the Iowa National Guard since 2011.
