NATOAIR Sent Me This

[Annie]

We mustn't forget those who gave.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49371-2005Mar19?language=printer

A Portrait of Fallen Neighbors

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page A01


Name, home town, age, assignment, base, date of death.

The Department of Defense reports give the facts on the 67 men and three women from Virginia, Maryland or the District who have died in the Iraq war since it began two years ago. What's missing from the reports is how they lived, what they dreamed, why they signed up, how they tried to comfort those at home. Seventy lives: an obituary.

What to say to sum them up? How to answer someone asking: What was he like? What was she like? What did he do? Who was she?

Joshua Hurley liked to hunt and fish and believed in right, wrong -- and the truth, his family said. There was no gray.

If Kirk Bosselmann was going to do something, he figured he might as well do it 100 percent.

Dale Burger Jr. would pick his dad up from his wheelchair and carry him up the stairs. He loved his dad.

Kevin Shea had been nominated for a Bronze Star with Valor, but he never told his family.

Karl Linn posted photos of guns, helicopters and the Euphrates River on his Web site. One picture was labeled "Little old me with the Kalashnikov."

Javier Obleas-Prado Pena was awarded 26 medals and honors during 18 years in the Marines. He was "approaching retirement very quickly," a Marine official said.

His nickname was Ski, and Nicholas Ziolkowski prided himself on being good at his job. He could sit for hours on a rooftop looking through his scope, waiting for the enemy to enter the lens. On that roof, you would not have known that his passion was surfing.

Cornell Gilmore was married for 21 years. A family man. Loved gospel music and baseball. He was always punctual and was famous for his salutations: "Come on, team!" "I got you covered!" "Go forth and have a nice day!"

Andrew Tuazon took bad sides of no one, one of his friends told the Daily Press of Newport News. Never saw him upset or depressed. Always with a friend, coming and going or on his cell phone. And whenever he came home on leave, he never missed church.

Bradley Arms was a student at the University of Georgia when his reserve unit shipped out. "He was an all-American kid," the headmaster of his old school said. A second-grade class at the independent Christian school had adopted Bradley. When they heard the news, the students took it hard.

His nickname was Salty. When William Watkins III was in high school, he played the role of Pharaoh in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." He could do an Elvis Presley impersonation that brought down the house.

Thomas Doerflinger, who wrote poetry, gave his best friend a copy of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobiography, "Living to Tell the Tale." Said he would have to give her the rest of the trilogy when he came back.

"That's my baby boy," Darryl Dent's father said. "He was a good kid." Darryl had a deep baritone that made him sound like a wise, old man. He was voted king of the Junior ROTC for the homecoming parade.

Leonard Cowherd was a West Point graduate who wrote guest columns for his hometown newspaper depicting "a soldier's firsthand experiences in Iraq."

Gregory Pennington had a precious smile -- the kind of guy who could make you feel as though you had known him all your life. He was "a prince of a man." His mother offered him up in prayer at church on Sunday mornings.

Sharon Swartworth used to love getting out with the soldiers in the field. Her job was to rally the troops. She specialized in administration. She lived in Alexandria and had planned to move to Hawaii to join her husband. She was excited about this mission. It was going to be her last hurrah before retirement. Then they were going to live happily ever after.

Joel Egan Baldwin was born in Panama, taught quality control to sailors and built a playground at his daughter's elementary school.

Jeffery Walker was a wrestler, bodybuilder and welder. He tinkered with cars, had a series of old Acuras. His helicopter went down in Fallujah. A woman in Havre de Grace, Md., where he was from, saw a casualty team looking for his relatives. "I felt bad," she said. "He was a really nice kid, a really nice kid."

Alexander Wetherbee had lived in Ethiopia, India, Norway and Pakistan. At McLean High School, he was captain of the lacrosse team. He graduated with a degree in forest resources from the University of Idaho. He was on his second deployment in Iraq. A family member who answered the phone could only get out: "He was a wonderful young man, very loving."

Jakia Sheree Cannon ran track in Italy, her funeral program said. In Virginia, she sang for Greater Mount Zion Baptist Church, where she was an usher.

Patrick Adle was laid-back, the happiest person you ever knew. Loved to surf. Loved to party. Was 21 and a ladies' man, his cousin said. Right before he was deployed, he called to talk to his family gathered at a wedding. They passed the cell phone around. Nobody talked to him as if he weren't coming back. Nobody knew.

Gregory MacDonald was cerebral. Studied philosophy, played guitar, wanted to be a Marine. He thought it would add credibility to his goal of working toward peace in the Middle East. His brother calculated the risk, assuring himself that "pretty much everybody comes home" from war. When they declared "mission accomplished," his brother exhaled, thinking the risks had subsided. Gregory was killed 55 days later.

All the men in Maurice Keith Fortune's family were in the military. His specialty was guiding and controlling artillery. His job was to determine where artillery rounds landed. He was killed when an explosive device detonated near his military vehicle.


It's the images of them as children that sometimes emerge, frozen like first impressions. Easier to remember than to forget. The boy or girl who hasn't had a chance to grow up.


When Adam Mooney was a boy, he watched the seagulls and geese fly and decided he wanted to fly. His father bragged to all his patients about his son who loved to fly. Adam got a pilot's license at 16, joined the Army a few years later. His helicopter crashed into the Tigris River.

Michael Starr was in such a hurry to join the military that he skipped his high school graduation.

Leslie Jackson wrote to her principal from Iraq, told him in an e-mail that she had left home "as mommy's little girl. And now had grown up to be a full-fledged soldier." She was 18 when her truck hit a roadside bomb.

When Erik Hayes graduated in 1998, he was the only student from his senior class to do so. They remembered him as a nice, quiet boy who worked on a dairy farm but could not save enough money for school, so he joined the Army.

David Edward Owens Jr. was polite. An everyday kid from a patriotic community. He always addressed neighbors as Mr. or Mrs. And said, "Yes, ma'am." When he came home to buy a used pickup truck, he was all shined up in his uniform. He was the kind of kid who, if he saw your mother at the grocery store, would say, "Hi, Mrs. McHale!"

Last year, at Michael Dooley's little brother's birthday party, he entertained everybody by showing off his tongue ring. In eighth grade, he played football. But the team had a losing record. In the last game of the season, his friend threw a block, and he took the ball 80 yards for the team's only touchdown that year.

David Ruhren was so young when he joined the National Guard that he needed parental consent. David's mother didn't know that she was the reason he signed up. He wanted to make her proud. She said later that he didn't need to do that to make her proud. He had amazed her since birth.

Even though Demarkus Brown was short, he took up long-distance running. Had to work extra hard to keep up. Wouldn't say no to a challenge. His coach can still see him hitting that turn on the final lap, running hard to the finish line.

A high school guidance counselor remembered Michael Carey as a slight, blond boy with glasses who wanted to get his GED diploma and join the Marines. He went with his grandfather to the Army recruiting office, but it was closed. Next door, the Marine Corps recruiting office was open.


Their dreams linger, defiant, like something inflated and sent up that hasn't yet come down. Just up there, waiting.


Jonathan Bowling was a deeply religious man who wanted to become a state trooper.

David Branning, from Dulaney High School, loved cooking and drawing. He joined the Marines partly out of curiosity and because he wanted to see the world. Before he left, he read "War and Peace."

"Mom," Jeremy Dimaranan had said when he fell in love, "I'm going to marry Maria." He was saving to buy a house next year.

"He was so proud to be in the Army," Jason Deibler's father said. "The one saving grace is that it happened when he was at the happiest point in his life."

John Howard told his family he was "going over there to do his job. That was to make Iraq a free place."

Darrell Schumann wrote to his family that he had gone three weeks without a shower, was crammed with a bunch of other Marines, "sitting with a machine gun six hours a day." The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter he was in crashed in a sandstorm outside Rutbah in Iraq's western desert. He was 10 days from going home. His brother said later that Darrell always wanted to be part of something bigger than himself.

Raymond Faulstich Jr. liked to go night fishing and got into some trouble when he was younger. Dropped out of school, drifted, got a girlfriend, went back to school, then to college, wanted to drive Army trucks. Joined the Army to redeem himself. Married his girlfriend. He promised to make her a wonderful life. Planned a big wedding for his home leave. She already had her white dress, long veil and satin shoes.


Sometimes what remains is the strong feeling that something was going to happen before it did.

 

[Annie]

Unfortunately the post was too long, this is the rest of it.

Jason Ford wrote on his Web site from Germany before he left for Iraq: "I will be going to war soon with one of the worst countries in the world. I will be on the front line, watching any and everything a person could only have nightmares about and I will be facing it in first person view. Do I have a choice? No, and I don't know if I will come back." His mother was trying to nap when she heard a knock at the door. It was two soldiers. "You are here about my son, Jason, aren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am," they said.

Sometimes it's what they said when they called home that hangs in the air, just out of reach, like something dangled then snatched away.


Jason Mileo fought his way through Basra, Nasiriyah and Kut and made it into Baghdad, where he borrowed a reporter's satellite phone. He left a message for his parents. Told them he loved them. That he was watching Saddam Hussein's statue fall. He was seeing history.

Krisna Nachampassak called to say they were being bombed, which made his wife even more scared. He said he was worried about his family if something should happen to him. He and three other Marines drowned after their Humvee tipped over into a canal. Sometimes, they say, the patrols turn off their lights and use night-vision goggles to avoid being seen. Marines often complain that the goggles throw off their perception.

Jack "Jay" Bryant Jr. sang in the choir, had a bounce in his step and chose the Army because he was not ready for college. When he called home, he begged his parents not to worry, telling them he was "immortal," his father said. Isn't that what you think when you are 23?

It was just a quick call, the last one Christopher Weaver made home. Told his mother he was okay, had been out in the field. But didn't want to get into all of that. Wanted to know mostly about Christmas. He missed being there. He had been living near a dam by the Euphrates River, sweeping for road mines and searching for insurgent weapons.

Two hours after calling his mom at the family dairy farm in Virginia, Jason Redifer was killed. He was 19 and a "good, old-fashioned patriot." In his high school yearbook, he quoted John F. Kennedy: "Ask not what your country can do for you."

Jeffrey Kaylor told his family about living in the desert as a soldier. Couldn't jog at night because "the local snakes like to come out" and he had had to escape "pit vipers." In September, he wrote: "It's cool outside and you can see every star in the sky. It's so clear that you can even see the Milky Way."

George Mitchell wrote to his wife, according to the Columbus Dispatch: "If my fate is not to come back, I want you to go on with your life. I am now in my mode of focusing on what is to be my fate as a soldier. I am more ready than ever knowing that you are there and the children, they are what is going to pull me through." He was killed by a rocket 30 minutes after getting off the phone with his wife.

Binh Le's father had served in the South Vietnamese army. Binh had "that kind of blood." When he told his family he was leaving for Iraq, his uncle said: "He said if he don't do it, no one [would] do it," the uncle said. The last time they spoke, he said he was tired of military food. Wanted some Vietnamese-style meatballs. His uncle promised to send him the spices. Just before they hung up, his uncle told him to keep his head down. "Yeah," he replied. "We'll do that."

Sometimes what comes to mind is the way the words they said were arranged just before they left. The promises just as clear as the pillows on the sofa where they sat.

James Pettaway Jr. was good-looking, loved expensive suits and Kangol caps. Played jazz, hip-hop and R&B as he drove his shiny, black Ford Expedition. Before he shipped out for a second tour, he asked his aunt and uncle to meet him at the airport when he came back, no matter what. James lived with his aunt after his divorce. She remembered him saying Iraq was extremely dangerous, and he didn't think the troops were getting adequate support from the government, felt it was skimping on equipment. He told them he didn't want to go back.

His grandmother called Frank Rivers Jr. a church boy. Before he left for Iraq, he sat down with her. Said he was going to "be all right." Of course, she was leery. Then when he got there, he made all sorts of friends. He sent photos from Iraq, posing with his buddies, smiling. She used to watch the news every day, not really looking for him, not really, really worrying. But when she heard those boots at the door, she went "berserk." Said: "He didn't even get to live his life."

Sometimes what is remembered is the sacrifice, what they and their families gave up in the war. Doing something so someone else might live, doing their duty -- some out there day after day, on the front lines. What made them heroes?


Kendall Waters-Bey was the 29-year-old Marine who was killed on the first day of the war. His father held his son's photo up to a camera and told a Baltimore television station: "I want President Bush to get a good look at this, a real good look here. This is the only son I had, the only son."

Back in Cumberland, Md., Brandon Davis was the class cut-up, suspended once for going in drag to his eighth-grade dance. He called home and told his grandmother he could hear bullets whizzing by and bombs exploding, but he told her: "Maw-maw, it's not bad over here. It's just like living with another family." He had a chance to return on a home leave, but he gave it up for a friend. He died when his Army vehicle drove over a bomb near Fallujah.

Jeffrey Graham was on a foot patrol outside Baghdad when he spotted an explosive device taped to a guardrail. He warned his platoon that it was a bomb. Seconds later, it exploded, killing him, another soldier and two Iraqis. At his funeral, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader, people were given a copy of the soldiers' creed: "I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade."

For Father's Day, Nathaniel Nyren's daughter bought him a teddy bear and shipped it to Iraq with words recorded on it. It would say: "You're the best daddy in the world. I love you." When he called home on Christmas, he was cheerful, looking forward to his tour ending.

Timothy Price was their first child on his second tour in Iraq. His family grew more worried the more violent the country became. Then came the news. "It was almost as if he had used up a lot of his good luck on the first tour of duty," his father said. The father was numb when he heard the news. "It didn't come totally as a surprise," but it is the worst feeling a father could have, he said.

At Woody's Funeral Home, where the people were really nice, the phone rang and it was an official from the government, calling for Michael Gray's widow, his grandmother said. The young woman wouldn't come to the phone, his grandmother said: "I will not tell you what she said, but it wasn't pretty." A commander took the call and explained that Mrs. Gray was in no condition to talk but said he would convey the condolences. Michael, his mother's only son and the father of four girls, was killed in Kuwait. One of the little girls talks to her dad even now. She crawls up on the sofa and goes to sleep with an angelic smile on her face. "Hi, Daddy. I've been good. Bye, Daddy." She has a whole conversation with him, his grandmother said. "All the kids, they want their dad."

Nicholas Mason had blond hair and blue eyes, and when his sister wrote about him, she said he was probably covered in dirt. She said he would do his duty without complaining. Being a soldier was all he ever wanted to do. His sister wrote: "He is a soldier and he is the reason that we live free."

James Blankenbecler didn't really know what he wanted to do after high school, so he joined the Army. It became his dream to be a command sergeant. He went to Iraq to replace someone who was retiring. A bomb and a rocket-propelled grenade hit his convoy.

When an orange taxi drove toward them, Humayun Khan ordered his soldiers to hit the dirt while he walked toward the car, motioning for it to stop. A bomb inside the car exploded. "Where did his strength come from to face such a danger instead of hiding behind a pole or a booth or something?" his father asked. "Normally, we would try to hide. Had he done that, there would be no problem at all. It may have not been fatal."

"Dear Mom," Donald May wrote. "Sorry, I haven't written sooner, but I obviously have been busy. I was sorry to hear about Grandma . . . speaking of grandmas, tell Grandma that I'm sorry for missing her birthday again. I have a good excuse this time. (Ha. Ha.) I hope everyone is doing well. If not, tell them to do better! Sorry, yelling at people to get what I want is an occupational hazard, a hard habit. . . . Tell Grandpa to quit watching the news for me." They don't film front-line guys, he said.


Sometimes what haunts survivors is the tragedy of how they died.


Bryan Spry had so many near misses. One sniper's bullet ripped off his name tag and knocked him sideways. Three days later, a roadside bomb exploded within 20 yards of his Humvee. The shrapnel cracked his helmet and his eardrum ruptured, he told his brother when he called home. Then his Humvee went off a bridge, or the bridge collapsed. The other soldiers escaped, but his helmet got caught in the turn signal. He was trapped as the Humvee filled with water.

John Teal, from Mechanicsville, was in a convoy in Baqubah when an improvised explosive device -- a roadside bomb -- exploded. "We call it an ambush," an Army spokesman said. "It's a deadly attack."

During clearing operations, an improvised explosive device detonated near Kristopher Shepherd. He was really into his family, a good father and husband. He was supposed to call home on a Friday. But his wife didn't hear from him. "That's when it all happened," she said.

Tavon Hubbard and another Marine died in a helicopter crash in Anbar province.

Michael Lalush was killed in the crash of a UH-1N helicopter. Last year, during a graduation ceremony at his high school, they played taps. The school was going to build a memorial to him near the flagpole.

Clarence Adams III was the kind of man who looked out for his little brother, didn't want him to go through the things he went through. He died from injuries he suffered on his 28th birthday when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

They delivered the note just before James Adamouski boarded the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. They saw him read the e-mail from his wife, grin, fold the note, put it in his pocket. "God, it's great to hear from home," he said. The helicopter crashed in central Iraq.

The whole neighborhood came out, people who watched him grow up. That was why the funeral procession was so long. Mark Stubenhofer had been the paperboy, the second baseman, the vice president of student government at West Springfield High School. Received a Bronze Star for helping free five Iraqi cities. Told his wife he wanted to name their daughter Hope Riley. At the funeral, his wife held a rose in one hand and Hope in the other.

Brian Medina was a "sweet" break dancer, learned to dance while he was living in Italy. Started a break-dancing club at Gar-Field Senior High School, where some students were concerned he might break his neck. In Fallujah, he was inside a gated home searching for weapons when insurgents rallied with automatic gunfire. At his funeral, another Marine leaned over the silver coffin, put his head on his fist and cried. "Sorry, I did what I could. I am sorry. I could have saved you," he said.

Then some remember how close he was to coming home, the timing that doesn't make sense, the questions that come along with the only-ifs.

Jayton Patterson had survived Fallujah. In three weeks, he would be home. He'd already sent some of his things ahead of him. His wife had bought tickets to the Caribbean to celebrate their second anniversary. When she got back from running an errand, she saw the two Marines standing on the front porch. Her legs refused to hold her up. She collapsed on the lawn.