U.S. Army Brigadier General Dies in Afghanistan

FORT HOOD, Texas, Feb. 5, 2012 — Army Brig. Gen. Ter­ence J. Hild­ner died of appar­ent nat­ur­al caus­es Feb. 3 in Kab­ul, Afghanistan, offi­cials here announced today.

Army Brig. Gen. Ter­ence J. Hild­ner, who com­mand­ed the 13th Sus­tain­ment Com­mand (Expe­di­tionary) in Afghanistan, died of appar­ent nat­ur­al caus­es Feb. 3 in Kab­ul. Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force pho­to Click to enlarge

Hild­ner, 49, list­ed his home of record as Fair­fax, Va. He was born in New Haven, Conn. He took com­mand of 13th Sus­tain­ment Com­mand (Expe­di­tionary) Aug. 19, 2010. “We are tru­ly sad­dened by the loss of Brigadier Gen­er­al Hild­ner,” said Army Lt. Gen. Don Camp­bell Jr., III Corps and Fort Hood com­mand­ing gen­er­al. “This is a trag­ic loss for the Army, III Corps and for our Cen­tral Texas com­mu­ni­ty. Our thoughts and prayers are with his Fam­i­ly and friends. The com­mand will remain focused on assist­ing the Fam­i­ly through this dif­fi­cult time.” 

A 1984 grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Notre Dame, Hild­ner began his career as an armor offi­cer with the 3rd Armored Cav­al­ry Reg­i­ment at Fort Bliss, Texas. He was reas­signed in 1988 to the 2nd Armored Cav­al­ry Reg­i­ment in the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many. He served as the reg­i­men­tal train­ing offi­cer and sub­se­quent­ly com­mand­ed a ground cav­al­ry troop. 

Dur­ing his com­pa­ny com­mand, Hildner’s troop deployed with the reg­i­ment as part of the U.S. VII Corps’ attack into Kuwait and Iraq dur­ing Oper­a­tion Desert Storm, as well as con­duct­ing the last U.S. patrol along the East-West Ger­man bor­der before its reunification. 

Return­ing to Fort Hood from Ger­many, the gen­er­al served in sev­er­al assign­ments, to include 2nd Armored Divi­sion comp­trol­ler and aide-de-camp to the 4th Infantry Division’s com­mand­ing general. 

Hild­ner tran­sit­ed to the Quar­ter­mas­ter Corps and attend­ed the U.S. Army Com­mand and Gen­er­al Staff Col­lege at Fort Leav­en­worth, Kan., in 1997. He lat­er served in a vari­ety of staff posi­tions, to include bat­tal­ion exec­u­tive offi­cer of the 296th For­ward Sup­port Bat­tal­ion, Sup­ply and Ser­vices chief for I Corps Logis­tics at Fort Lewis, Wash., and logis­ti­cian for Joint Task Force 6, a Depart­ment of Defense coun­ter­drug task force. 

In 2003, Hild­ner assumed com­mand of the 13th Corps Sup­port Command’s Spe­cial Troops Bat­tal­ion at Fort Hood. Dur­ing near­ly three years in com­mand, the bat­tal­ion con­duct­ed two oper­a­tional deploy­ments. The first came in sup­port of Oper­a­tion Iraqi Free­dom as a com­bat sus­tain­ment sup­port bat­tal­ion, pro­vid­ing gen­er­al logis­ti­cal sup­port to units locat­ed around Joint Base Bal­ad, as well as the Abu Gharib prison complex. 

The battalion’s sec­ond deploy­ment came in the wake of Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, as Logis­ti­cal Task Force Lone Star, pro­vid­ing both mil­i­tary and human­i­tar­i­an sup­port operations. 

From July 2007 to July 2009, Hild­ner com­mand­ed the 23rd Quar­ter­mas­ter Brigade at Fort Lee, Va., train­ing more than 20,000 sol­diers annu­al­ly for deploy­ment in sup­port of con­tin­gency oper­a­tions across the globe. 

In 2009, he was the Com­bined Arms Sup­port Command’s direc­tor of train­ing and doctrine. 

Hild­ner depart­ed Fort Hood in Decem­ber 2011 for Afghanistan to sup­port the NATO Train­ing Mission-Afghanistan. 

“The unfor­tu­nate and untime­ly death of Brigadier Gen­er­al Hild­ner was a shock to our unit and Fam­i­lies,” said Army Col. Knowles Atchi­son, 13th ESC rear com­man­der. “Both for­ward-deployed ele­ments and we at home sta­tion are deeply sad­dened by this loss. We will all pull togeth­er through this dif­fi­cult peri­od and care for one another.” 

Hildner’s awards include the Legion of Mer­it, Bronze Star with one oak leaf clus­ter, Defense Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Medal, Army Mer­i­to­ri­ous Ser­vice Medal with two oak leaf clus­ters, Joint Ser­vice Com­men­da­tion Medal, Army Com­men­da­tion Medal with three oak leaf clus­ters, U.S. Army Achieve­ment Medal with one oak leaf clus­ter, Joint Mer­i­to­ri­ous Unit Award, Val­or­ous Unit Award, Nation­al Defense Ser­vice Medal with bronze ser­vice star, South­west Asia Medal with 2 bronze stars, Glob­al War on Ter­ror­ism Expe­di­tionary Medal, Glob­al War of Ter­ror­ism Ser­vice Medal, Human­i­tar­i­an Ser­vice Medal, the Com­bat Action Badge and the Para­chutist Badge. 

Cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Hildner’s death are under investigation. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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