Seidel, 23, was a rifle platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion in the 22nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, N.Y. He and three other soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in Iraq when his Humvee was hit by an improvised explosive device in the northwest sector of Baghdad. His deployment was scheduled to end in August.

He majored in The American Legal System, with his required engineering concentration in environmental engineering at West Point, was an Army Ranger, earned his Air Assault and Airborne badges, and was planning a career in the Army.

He will be buried in Emmitsburg, Md., and is survived by his parents and one brother.

From LTC Kevin P. Brown, USMA 1987, battalion commander:
1LT Robert Seidel was one of my very best. He was very well liked by the soldiers in his platoon, and his peers, and he was an outstanding officer. We are all mourning his loss right now here in theater, as is his family back home.

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