The Department of Defense announced the death of a soldier from Fort Carson who was supporting Operation Inherent Resolve.
Spc. Alex J. Ram died Tuesday, Feb. 1 as a result of a non-combat related incident in Syria, according to the Department of Defense.
Ram, 20, is from Rancho Cucamonga, California, and was assigned to the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division.
“The passing of Spc. Alex Ram is an unfortunate loss for the entire Raider team,” said Col. Andrew Steadman, of the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. “We want to convey our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends during this time of mourning.”
“Every soldier fills an important role in the Raider Brigade, and losing Alex is particularly tough,” Steadman said. “He brought honor to the uniform, and was not only an outstanding soldier, but a loyal friend. Alex will be deeply missed.”
Ram joined the Army on Jan. 13, 2020, and arrived at Fort Carson on July 11, 2020, according to information from the Army.
His decorations include two Army Commendation Medals – one that was received in combat and one that’s a Army Achievement Medal. He also earned the National Defense Service Ribbon, Iraq Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Service Ribbon and the Army Service Ribbon.
The 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, replaced the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Louisiana Army National Guard, in July 2021, as part of a regular rotation of forces to support the United States’ commitment to Operation Inherent Resolve.
Operation Inherent Resolve is the U.S. military’s operational name for the international military intervention against the Islamic State terrorist group, including both a campaign in Iraq and a campaign in Syria, with a closely-related campaign in Libya.
The campaign is primarily waged by American air forces in support of local allies, most prominently the Iraqi security forces and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
United States casualties included 74 troops killed, 72 military personnel wounded plus 18 civilians killed. Islamic State casualties include more than 80,000 personnel killed by American and allied airstrikes.
Iraq Body Count and Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have documented the deaths of 186,107 – 209,304 civilians from violence and a total of 288,000 violent deaths including combatants. More than one million civilians in Iraq and Syria have been displaced, or fled to Turkey and other countries since the invasion.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently announced proposals to overhaul how the US military monitors, assesses and documents when its actions kill civilians, a move warily welcomed by human rights and civilian harm mitigation NGOs.
Building on years of documentation by groups like the Syrian Network for Human Rights and Airwars, since late 2021 the New York Times produced a series of deep investigations documenting systemic flaws in the way US military operations track casualties from their strikes.
These revelations have prompted further scrutiny of the US military’s approach to civilian harm and raised pressures on the Biden administration to intervene.
From August 8, 2014, to August 29, 2019, coalition aircraft conducted a total of 34,573 strikes but the American-led international force paused all anti-ISIS operations on January 5, 2020, to focus on protecting local bases in anticipation of the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq in March 2020.
This action was also linked to possible retaliation in the wake of the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations.