Summit Post 
A group of soldiers planning an exercise wandered across a bear den on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage when a sow attacked, state wildlife troopers said.
A U.S. Army soldier who stumbled across a brown bear den and was surprised by a “flash of brown mass” was killed in a bear attack on Tuesday while scouting a wilderness area on an Alaska military base, a state wildlife official said.
Three soldiers had come across the den while mapping out a training site for a land navigation course on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, said Capt. Derek DeGraaf, commander of the Northern Detachment of the Alaska Wildlife Troopers, an agency that enforces wildlife laws. The soldiers’ arrival prompted the mother bear, or sow, to crawl outside, he said. She ran away after knocking down one soldier and attacking a second, who later died.
“From the soldier’s perspective, there was a flash of brown mass,” he said. “They were attacked and didn’t even see it coming.”
The New York Times
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