ARMY TEST AND EVALUATION COMMAND RENAMES CONFERENCE ROOM AFTER SOLDIER KILLED IN IRAQ

By Mike Cast
DTC Public Affairs

To honor an Army medic killed in Iraq, the command conference room of the Army Developmental Test Command (DTC) at Aberdeen Proving Ground has been renamed the Eric P. Woods Memorial Conference Room. A plaque commemorating Pvt. 1st Class Eric Woods and honoring his service to the Army and the United States was unveiled at the renaming ceremony May 23.

Maj. Gen. James Myles, commander of the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC), the organization responsible for all of the Army’s testing and evaluation programs, including those conducted by DTC, instigated the name change and spoke at the ceremony, where he lauded Woods for his courage and selfless service to his fellow Soldiers and country. 

Woods, a Soldier with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, headquartered at Fort Carson, Colo., was killed July 9, 2005, by an improvised explosive device while trying to evacuate a wounded Soldier during combat operations at Tall Afar, Iraq. The 26-year-old native of Urbandale, Iowa, who had lived in Omaha, Neb., before joining the Army, was assigned to the 3rd ACR’s Sabre Squadron. On the day of his death he had stopped to aid a wounded fellow Sabre Squadron Soldier, Spc. Hoby Bradfield, first stabilizing him before loading him into a medical evacuation vehicle. As Woods drove the vehicle from the scene and toward the operation’s landing zone, it was hit by a blast that killed both men. 

Myles had first heard about Woods July 26, 2005, while attending a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery to honor Bradfield, a 22-year-old Soldier raised in Virginia Beach, Va. Myles was introduced to Woods parents at the ceremony for Bradfield and decided to honor the slain medic by directing that DTC rename its conference room after the Soldier and host a ceremony in his honor.

During his speech at the ceremony, Myles described Woods as a young man who always put the welfare of others ahead of his own.

“If you follow his life and what he cherished, there is a common thread. . .think of others. . .remain active in your church activities. . .play team sports. . .join the Army and be part of something bigger than himself. . .and eventually go back to school and pursue a medical career, continuing to take care of others,” Myles said.

He noted that Woods received the Bronze Star with Valor and the Combat Field Medic Badge on June 25, 2005, just two months after his arrival in Iraq, during an operation that, like the events of July 9, would forever link Woods with Bradfield. The award was for heroic actions in rendering battlefield aid to a wounded Soldier during a four-hour dismounted operation. The Sabre Squadron’s Grim Troop had come under small-arms fire from multiple directions on that occasion. One of the troops, Sgt. Jeremy Wolfsteller, had been hit by an AK-47 round and lay wounded in the street. Woods and Bradfield rushed through the line of fire to reach the wounded Soldier and help move him from the street to a safer position. While Bradfield bandaged the wound, Woods inserted an IV to provide the Soldier with plasma, and the two Soldiers carried their wounded comrade through hostile fire to a Bradley Fighting Vehicle for evacuation.

After the formal ceremony, Woods family members were escorted into the conference room to look at plaques and other memorials to Woods, permanently affixed there to remind conference room users that Soldiers are the focus of what they are there to accomplish.

It was a fitting place to honor Woods, Myles said, because it was the scene of several classified teleconferences where measures to counter the IED threat were discussed. DTC and ATEC’s other subordinate command activities have made protecting Soldiers from IEDs a crucial priority from the beginning, Myles said.

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