Blogger Maj Andrew Olmsted killed in action

Milblogger Maj Andrew Olmsted was killed in action in Iraq on January 3, and left a post at Obsidian Wings that was to be published in the event of his death. It seems he was caught in an ambush in Diyala and gave his life defending his comrades. Killed with him was Capt Thomas John Casey.
   One of the relatives of the two men has tried to piece together what had happened, and it appears that Maj Olmsted and Capt Casey ‘took the lead’ while the team was ambushed. 
   From what little I know of Maj Olmsted, his blog posts had plenty of good sense, were non-partisan and gave us an insight into life for a US soldier in Iraq.
   He was there to train members of the Iraqi Army, to speed up the Iraqi Government’s decision that it would no longer require US troops to be there.
   His last actual blog post was written to describe what the US Army did for Eid al-Adha, and on there you can see numerous members of his family post as news of his death emerged.
   Maj Olmsted does ask that his death not to be made into a political issue, to protect his family. It is worth paying tribute to this humble and intelligent man in any case, and to appreciate what life was like for the troops.