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.
Robert Arciola grieves for his son, Army Pfc. Michael Anthony Arciola of Elmsford, N.Y., who was killed in Iraq. Alexandra Kovach, the fiancee of Michael Arciola's brother, and Pfc. Oscar Olguin also attended the burial last week at Arlington National Cemetery.
(Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
|
|
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!"
