User:Kendrick7/Ralph Kauzlarich

Colonel, then Lieutenant Colonel, Ralph Kauzlarich was the first U.S. Army commander of the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division which was reactivated in 2006 during the Iraq War.

Kauzlarich is a 1984 graduate of Grants Pass High School, Grants Pass, Oregon and of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1988.

In May 2004, as the Executive Officer for Colonel James C. Nixon, he directed the second inquiry into the death of Pat Tillman. The military would conclude in 2007 that there were technical errors in both investigations, but each identified fratricide as Tillman's cause of death.

In February 2007, as part of the Iraq Surge, Kauzlarich was charged with taking his battalion (2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry) into the 9 Nisan district of Baghdad with the task of clearing volatile neighborhoods of militia fighters. His command was chronicled in the 2009 book The Good Soldiers.

His battalion successfully redeployed to Fort Riley, Kansas in April 2008.