By Kimberly Hefling
The Associated Press

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division killed fighting in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and past wars were hailed Monday as heroes.

"The heart, the spirit and the soul of former Screaming Eagles lives with us today," retired Command Sgt. Maj. Harvey Appleman said during a Memorial Day ceremony. "They cannot, they must not, be forgotten - for in their death, they gave life to America."

Wreaths presented

Veterans of World War II, the Vietnam War, the 1991 Persian Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom - each war in which the division has participated - placed a wreath at the base of a black marble monument built in remembrance of the thousands of soldiers killed while wearing the division patch.

"The soldiers who lost their lives in this war as well as past wars did not die in vain," said Command Sgt. Maj. Bill Ogletree, who returned last week from Iraq. "They are the absolute reason we are able to be here today as free Americans, and we honor them. They serve as a constant reminder that freedom isn't free."

Among the seven killed in Iraq were two officers assigned to the division - Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40 - who died in a grenade attack at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait. A 101st soldier has been charged in their deaths.

An eighth soldier also died in Iraq from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Appleman said 2,102 soldiers from the division died fighting in World War II, and 3,221 died in Vietnam. No soldiers from the division died during combat in the Gulf War or during the time the division's 3rd Brigade fought last year in Afghanistan.

Soldiers on the ground

Despite technology that has helped lower the casualty rate during combat, Ogletree said, "it still takes the soldiers on the ground making sacrifices to get the job done."

The 20,000-plus strong 101st, which deployed in February, is conducting humanitarian missions in northern Iraq. It is based at Fort Campbell, 50 miles north of Nashville.

The 101st is a rapid-deployment air assault division trained to go anywhere in the world in 36 hours.

The division's greatest disaster occurred Dec. 12, 1985, when 248 members of the 101st were killed in the crash of a DC-8 at Gander, Newfoundland, on their way home from a multinational peacekeeping mission in the Sinai Peninsula.