[Thanks to David Honish, Veteran, and Phil Gasper, who sent this in.]

ROLL CALL:

Baghdad Soldier Killed By IED

11 October 2006 Multi National Corps Iraq Public Affairs Office, Camp Victory RELEASE No. 20061011-04

BAGHDAD:  A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 2:15 a.m. today from wounds he received when his patrol was struck by an improvised-explosive device in central Baghdad. 

Kentucky Soldier Killed In Tikrit

Timothy Adam Fulkerson, 20, of Utica, Ky., died Oct. 8, 2006, in Tikrit, Iraq.  A landmine detonated near his vehicle.  (AP Photo/U.S. Army)

Oct. 11, 2006 Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer

OWENSBORO, Ky.:  A western Kentucky soldier died Sunday in Iraq when a landmine detonated near his vehicle, the Department of Defense said.

Timothy Adam Fulkerson, 20, of Utica, died in Tikrit, Iraq, during combat operations with the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Fulkerson graduated from Daviess County High School in 2004 and lived with Greg and Anissa "Nikki" Skaggs in Pleasant Ridge from the time he was 13 years old until he entered the Army two years ago.

"He was an awesome child," Greg Skaggs told the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer. "He wasn't mine biologically, but in all reality he was mine in my heart."

Military personnel arrived at the Skaggs' home Monday to inform the family of Fulkerson's death.

Although Fulkerson lived with the Skaggs, he had a good relationship with his parents. His mother is Tammy Brown and stepfather Ben Brown, of Horse Branch, and his father is Tim Fulkerson of Owensboro.

Fulkerson's body has been returned to the United States, but funeral arrangements have not yet been determined.

Another Northwest Louisiana Marine Dies In Iraq;

Summerfield Resident Was On His Second Deployment

Lance Cpl. Jon Eric Bowman, 21, of Summerfield. (Photo courtesy of rustonleader.com)

October 11, 2006 By John Andrew Prime and Ashley Northington, The Times

Another northwest Louisiana Marine, a combat veteran from Claiborne Parish with only a year or so left in uniform, has died in combat, his family reports.

The death of Lance Cpl. Jon Eric Bowman, 21, on Monday is the second involving an area Marine in Iraq in the past week.  John Edward Hale, 20, was killed Friday when an improvised explosive device detonated near his patrol in Anbar Province.

Bowman, a 2004 graduate of Summerfield High School, was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee, his widow, Dawn Farley Bowman, said Tuesday from her home in Summerfield.

"He'd been in the been in the Marines 2 1/2 years," she said, less than 18 hours after solemn, uniformed Marines from Bossier City-based Bravo Co., 1/23rd Marines arrived at her family's home to break the dreadful news.  "I was in Dallas working, and they told my brother."

Dawn Bowman returned from Texas and now is preparing to bury her husband of less than two years.  Funeral arrangements are just getting under way and are incomplete.

"This was his second deployment," she said, adding that her husband was soon to be promoted to corporal.  His time in Iraq would have gone on many months; he arrived there in early September.

Bowman believes her husband died in Anbar Province. The member of Charlie Company in the 1/6 Marines had been in Ramadi, where many area Marine Reservists served in 2004 and 2005.

Details of her husband's death are sketchy at this time.

"He died yesterday at 10 something in the morning our time and 6 something in the evening there," Bowman said Tuesday.

Her husband joined the service just after graduation from Summerfield High as a way to be able to support himself and get benefits for college.  "He told me when he was little he thought about it," said Bowman, who dated her husband about four years before they got married.

"But when 9-11 hit, he thought even harder about going in. As soon as he graduated, they took him in."

Jon Eric Bowman is the son of Johnny Wayne Bowman of Monroe and Jill Puckett of Lincoln Parish.

Paula Farley said her son-in-law was a good and thoughtful young man who loved her daughter dearly and called Dawn Bowman just before he left for Iraq the first time to propose.  They were married in a home service in February 2005 and had a big church wedding the following October, just less than a year ago. They then went on a honeymoon cruise to Veracruz, Mexico.

"They re-did their vows again because they loved each other so much," Farley said.

Tuesday, relatives and friends of slain Shreveport Marine John Edward Hale recalled how he dreamed of joining the military ever since he could walk and talk.

Hale grew up like other boys his age: hunting, fishing and listening to stories of his father’s time in the Navy, family members say.  But unlike other little boys, who often change what they want to become when they get older, Hale never wavered from his decision to join the Marines.

“He said that when he was a little baby.  He said that when he was in school. And he stuck with it,” said Hale's uncle Kevin Powers.  “Anybody who ever talked to him knew that he wanted to join the Marines.  He followed that dream his whole life.  He went through with it and he never let it go.”  Those who knew Hale best say that his death Friday wasn’t in vain and that he died doing what he loved.

“It was his passion to serve our country,” said Genae Bato, mother of Josh Bato, one of Hale’s best friends. “He always served and helped everybody, whether it was his friends, family, church or the Boy Scouts. This is what he always wanted to do. This was his destiny.”

Mike Green, head football coach at Huntington High, the Shreveport school from which Hale graduated in 2005, said he, other coaches and football players had the same reaction when they learned of Hale’s death.

“Everybody’s reaction was pretty much the same because we knew that’s how he would go,” Green said.  “We all thought he’d become a general in the military. And it is so unfortunate his time got cut short.”

Green described Hale as loyal, dedicated, a good student and a small offensive lineman who got a kick out of knocking “heavyweights” down.

“He was not the best football player. But when it comes to dedication, loyalty and effort, John Hale had all of those qualities. He loved a challenge.

“Every once in a while, there’s a kid that comes along and everybody can tell that they are heads above the rest. And that was John Hale.”

Huntington High plans to dedicate Friday night’s football game against C.E. Byrd High School to Hale.  He will be honored with a moment of silence, a prayer will be read to his friends and relatives and the football team will wear matching armbands in his memory, Huntington High principal Jerry Davis said.

“He was just an awesome kid,” Davis said. “We really want to do something special for him.”

Military funeral arrangements are pending the return of his remains to Louisiana, which could take two weeks.  He will be buried in Forest Park West Cemetery in Shreveport, his father, Phillip Greg Hale, has said.

Hale was with the 2/8th Marines of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

“The world will not be the same without John,” Bato said through her tears Tuesday morning.  “He was so kind and thoughtful.  He was precious, and I loved him like a son because he was so good in every way.”

Navy SEAL Dies In Combat

October 3, 2006 By DEEPA BHARATH, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

GARDEN GROVE Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor was supposed to come back home from Iraq in about two weeks, in time for Halloween, his favorite holiday.

Friends were planning a Halloween and "welcome home" bash for the 25-year-old Navy SEAL, said Patrick Barnes, one of Monsoor's best friends.

Monsoor died Sept. 29 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Ramadi, Iraq, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday.  He was assigned to a West Coast-based command.

Barnes said his friend was an adventurer who enjoyed traveling in Europe while he was deployed in Italy and loved snowboarding, fast cars and motorcycles.

He was also "honest, straightforward and a great friend."

"He was selective about the friends he made," Barnes said, fighting back tears. "But when you became his friend, you became his brother."

A family member who answered the door at Monsoor's home in Garden Grove said the family was too distraught to comment and wished to be "left alone."

Monsoor enlisted in the U.S. Navy in March 2001 and became a SEAL in January 2002, said Lt. Taylor Clark, a spokesman for the Naval Special Warfare Command.

Debbie Nelson, a neighbor and mother of one of Monsoor's friends, said Monsoor's was a "great boy, handsome and very polite."  "He was very proud of what he had achieved in the Navy," she said.

He grew up in Garden Grove, attending Dr. Walter C. Ralston Intermediate School and graduated from Garden Grove High School in 1999.

Monsoor was a strong, determined person who never gave up, his friend Danny Wright said.

"The first time he tried to become a SEAL, he didn't make it," he said.

Monsoor was crushed by his failure, Wright said.

"But he tried again and made it the second time," he said. "He was very proud of what he had accomplished."

Monsoor could be profound and serious at times and yet be funny around his friends, Barnes said.

"Last Halloween, he was one of the Super Mario Brothers," he said. "This year, we were supposed to dress up as sumo wrestlers."

Wright said Monsoor had sent him an e-mail two days before he died.

"He'd said he was proud of me," he recalled.  "And he told me to continue pursuing my dreams. It was as if he was saying goodbye and wishing me luck with my life."

Monsoor is survived by his parents, two brothers, a sister, nieces and nephews. Services are pending.

Military Funeral In Osceola Planned For Cpl. Aaron Seal

October 04. 2006 JOSHUA STOWE, Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND:  Lance Cpl. Matt Blodgett smiles when he remembers how Cpl. Aaron Seal played a cleaning-day prank on him, leaving clothes strewn everywhere at a time when everything was supposed to be in its place.

But his smile quickly fades when he describes how he will accompany Seal's body from Dover, Del., to Osceola in preparation for Seal's military funeral.

Seal, 23, of Elkhart, was killed Sunday in Baghdad, Iraq, by sniper fire while serving with Engineer Company B, a Marine Reserve unit based in South Bend. He is the company's only casualty in Iraq, and had been in the country only a month.

Now, as they prepare to bury Seal, Marines here are remembering the time they had with him.

"To deal with it, we've got plenty of Marines around here who knew him," Blodgett said Tuesday.

"Everybody's just talking about him and remembering the good things with him."

For Blodgett, that includes the prank that Seal pulled on him not so long ago at Camp Pendleton, Calif., where Engineer Company B was training before leaving for Iraq.

When he entered his room after stepping away, Blodgett immediately spotted a big mess. Then he heard Seal's laugh, and the pounding of his feet as he ran away.

"He was always smiling," Blodgett said. "He knew when to be serious, but he knew how to goof around, too.  It's just too bad.  He was a really good guy."

Today, Blodgett leaves for Dover, Del., where he will board a plane bearing Seal's body. The plane will fly from Dover to Chicago, where Marines and a hearse will be waiting to take the body to Osceola for a Friday visitation and a Saturday funeral.

2 Local Guardsmen Killed In Iraq

Oct 10 KMBC

Two soldiers serving with a Missouri National Guard unit from Kansas City have been killed in Iraq, defense officials said.

Sgt. Lawrence Parrish, from Lebanon, Mo., and Spc. John Wood, from Humboldt, Kan., were killed.  Both men were serving with the 110th Engineer Battalion out of Kansas City, which has been building roads and bridges in Iraq for more than a year.

Military officials said Parrish and Wood were killed by an improvised explosive device on Oct. 7. The two were in a Humvee along with Eric Sauer of Kansas City.

While doctors were treating Sauer after the attack Saturday morning, he knew he had to call home.  Someone gave him a cell phone so he could.

"He finally just had to shout into the phone, 'It's Eric, your son,'" mother Heather Sauer told KMBC's Martin Augustine. "There was obviously lots of chaos in the background, screaming and yelling, you know, things being moved around."

Sauer's parents said their son was frantic because he wanted his sisters and parents to know he was alive. Eric said he was concerned the military had already listed him as killed in action, or KIA.

"He said he had to get ahold of me to let me know that if the military did show up, he was not KIA and that he was OK," father Al Sauer said.  Al Sauer spent the next 48 hours trying to confirm what news he could about his son, but it was difficult.

He said his son was upset when they spoke again a few days later.

"He was saying, 'You know, it should be payback. We're over here trying to help them, and they kill my best friend and my sergeant,'" Al Sauer said.

He said he hopes his son and the rest of the 110th will be home for Thanksgiving.

Eric Sauer is expected to recover from his injuries. He used to serve in the Navy, but the joined the Missouri National Guard because he thought it would be more exciting.

Sniper In Iraq Kills Montanan

October 11, 2006 By JOHN DORAN, Missoulian

U.S. Marine Jeremy Scott Sandvick Monroe, 20, of Darby died Sunday in Iraq, one of three Marines killed in action in the western province of Anbar.

Monroe, a lance corporal with the 2/3 Echo Company 4th Platoon, was serving his second tour of duty in Iraq. He died when a sniper attacked his vehicle.

He was the son of Monte Monroe of Darby and Mellissa Pike of Chinook.

More than 2,753 U.S. soldiers have died fighting since the Iraq war erupted in March 2003.

Monroe, who grew up in Darby and moved to Chinook at 14 to be with his mother, graduated from Chinook High School.

On Sunday night, the Monroe family received word. Two Marines knocked on the door.

"You knew damn good and well what it meant," Monte Monroe said.

The Marines relayed that Jeremy Monroe had been caught by a sniper. He was shot in the head and died instantly, Monte said.

"He was such a fine young man," Monte said. "He's my hero."

The elder Monroe described his son as a fun-loving man who loved to play rock music on his guitar.

"He was a wonderful musician.  His guitar was like one of his best buddies," said the father, who also plays guitar.  "We talked about him and my other son who also plays guitar getting together."

Monroe also loved the mountains and camping, his father said.

Enlisting in the Marine Corps right out of high school, Monroe hopped on the bus bound for Butte just hours after his graduation commencement, skipping even his family celebration, the elder Monroe said. He knew he wanted to be a Marine and defend his country, his father said.

On Monroe's last trip home in August, Monte said, his son laid out his burial plans just in case.  But he didn't want to believe it would happen, he said.

"I knew (Missoula resident) Denny Bedard lost his son (Andrew) and I always kept him in my prayers, but son of a bitch, he (Jeremy) was 20," Monte said.

Monte and his wife, Dana, Jeremy's stepmother, have taken the news hard, he said. For Monroe's younger brother, Logan, 13, it has been especially difficult.

"He's doing better," Monte said. "The first night was difficult. We're all kind of numb, I guess."

Monroe's body will be shipped back from Iraq today and will likely arrive in Chinook near the weekend, when final arrangements will be made for his funeral.

The family plans to have a memorial service in Chinook, east of Havre on U.S. Highway 2. He will be buried farther east in Dodson.

"That's where he wanted to be buried," Monte said.

Out on the town at a big barbecue get-together in August, lots of people came up and shook Monroe's hand, telling him how proud of him they were, Monte said.

"He said, 'Dad, that there means more to me than anything,' " Monte said. "I don't know if people out there know how much it means (to a soldier) to go up to them and show your appreciation.

"I'm proud of all of them."

The Marine Corps has shown its admiration for Monroe by helping comfort his family, Monte said.

"The Marine Corps has been really good," he said. "My son's commander called, who was there at the time, and he said he was a very ferocious warrior, and outstanding Marine and an exceptional young man.

"I've been getting calls from all over the world. It's very comforting."

Wedding Dreams Burned To Ashes:

Annadale Bride-To-Be Loses Her Marine To A Roadside Bomb In Iraq

[Thanks to George McAnamara, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]

October 07, 2006 By TEVAH PLATT, STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE

Jessica Gurdemir of Annadale had bought her wedding gown.

Oct. 25, the tentative date of her fiance's return from Iraq, was circled on the Gurdemir family calendar.

But cruel fate has intervened: Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Cosgrove III, 23, a few weeks shy of returning to his Staten Island bride-to-be, was killed Sunday by a suicide car bomb detonated at an east Fallujah roadway checkpoint.

"My heart is broken," Ms. Gurdemir said last night.

She met her late fiance two years ago at a restaurant in Madison, N.J., where she was a student at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He, a resident of Cedar Knolls, N.J., was celebrating his 21st birthday and his graduation from boot camp.

It was the summer before Cosgrove's senior year at Monmouth University, where he completed his degree in history in 2005.  It was the summer that he enlisted and also fell in love.

A year ago this month, the couple had gone pumpkin-picking together and ended their date by carving their selection.  Cosgrove had hidden an engagement ring inside.

But before the wedding they had scheduled for August 2007, the soldier; he'd planned to join the military since he was a teen-ager; was to complete his tour of duty.

The reservist had not been scheduled to go to Iraq with G Company of the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marines, based at Picatinny Arsenal, but was deployed with another unit, which needed soldiers.

In April, he arrived in Fallujah, in volatile, Sunni-dominated Anbar province with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion.  According to reports from fellow Marines, Cosgrove had volunteered to man the roadway checkpoint, where he had developed friendships with Iraqis who passed through regularly.

He was killed during the final week of his seven-month assignment to combat duty, bringing to 172 the number of New York and New Jersey soldiers who have died in Iraq.

Cosgrove was one of roughly 30,000 troops serving in Anbar, where a senior American Marine commander said last month the force was not large enough to defeat the insurgency there, according to The ASSOCIATED PRESS.  A classified report submitted to the Pentagon by Marine commanders in Anbar, which was leaked to several news organizations, concluded that conditions in the restive area would continue to deteriorate unless there was a major infusion of aid and troops.

Thursday, the day Cosgrove was to have been transferred to a safe location, a candlelight vigil was held in his memory at Blackbrook Park in Whippany, N.J.

As they ready themselves for his funeral, to be held Wednesday in Madison, N.J., the Gurdemir family is mourning the loss of both Cosgrove's life and the couple's future.

Tim Gurdemir spoke last night of his daughter's excitement as she looked forward to reuniting with her fiance, and said it had been a great love match.  

"They were like little kids," Gurdemir said.  "They played games, they wrestled, they built battleships out of Legos.  They were like two little kids.  And they both have the same generous heart."

The family has received an outpouring of support from the Marines, Ms. Gurdemir's girlfriends and Cosgrove's parents, he said.

More than 100 messages have been written in honor of the young Marine on a Web site -- www.christophercosgrove.net -- created in Cosgrove's memory by a relative.

Many were written by former students of Ms. Gurdemir, who taught seventh- and eighth-grade English at St. Teresa's School in Castleton Corners.  Cosgrove had visited her classes to speak about his service with the Marines.

"I will never forget the day that he came to visit our seventh-grade class," wrote one student in a note like many of its kind.  "It was one of the best days that I had all year."

A blog written by one of Cosgrove's battalion mates, 1st Sgt. Ben Grainger, provided details about Cosgrove's enthusiasm.  But what he talked about the most, Grainger wrote, was "going home and getting married to his sweetheart."

"She was the love of his life," he continued.

"As I packed away his photos last night to send home, I paused at every one to put a face to all the stories he had told me. You could tell she thought the same of him, as they looked so perfect together.

“There are no answers for the pain they all feel today nor the pain we all feel."