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Missing soldier promoted to sergeant

A 10th Mountain Division soldier who has been missing since May 12 when his position was attacked south of Baghdad has been promoted to the rank of sergeant, the Army announced Wednesday.

Sgt. Alex R. Jimenez, a member of 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, was promoted under a long-standing Army policy for soldiers listed as missing or captured because his time and rank and time in service made him eligible.

His family will receive all entitlements due retroactively to June 26, 2007, the date of his promotion, the release said.

He previously served in Iraq from June 2004 to June 2005.

The ambush in which Jimenez, 25, and Pfc. Byron Fouty, 19, went missing also claimed the lives of seven fellow soldiers and one Iraqi interpreter.

Six of the soldiers were killed at the scene, and the body of a seventh soldier, Pfc. Joseph Anzack Jr., who had been missing since the attack, was found May 23 in the Euphrates River.

Two other soldiers have been listed as missing/captured during operations in Iraq.

Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie, 41, was abducted by masked gunmen in a Baghdad neighborhood Oct. 23, 2006, when he left the fortified Green Zone to visit his Iraqi wife.

The soldier missing the longest is Staff Sgt. Keith M. Maupin, 23, who disappeared April 9, 2004, in an ambush on his fuel convoy.