AV soldier dies of Iraq bomb wounds

avpress ^ | Friday, June 30, 2006 | LISA WAHLA HOWARD

[BenLurkin]

Army Pfc. Ryan James Clark, 19, of Lancaster [California], who waged a battle for life for more than a week, has died of injuries he suffered in a June 17 explosion in the city of Ramadi, an explosion that inflicted third-degree burns on most of his body.

The soldier, a combat engineer, became the second serviceman from the Antelope Valley to die in as many weeks. The other was Marine Cpl. Christopher Leon, 20, also killed in Anbar Province, the most turbulent area of Iraq outside Baghdad.

Both men were killed in the fighting with terrorists and insurgent fighters in Ramadi, capital of Anbar Province, a guerrilla-infested hotbed of resistance to the new Iraqi government and coalition forces. Marines and Army troops have been operating in Ramadi.

Clark, a 2004 graduate from Antelope Valley High School, will be buried with full military honors at Joshua Memorial Park in Lancaster, Shaffer said. The date and time of the service had not been set Thursday afternoon.

Clark's mother Pennie O'Brien, stepfather Steve O'Brien, brother Sean Clark and father Keith Clark were in Texas with him.

Last week, Pennie O'Brien said doctors had given Clark a 50% chance of making it and warned her that the risk would not subside for many months because of the extent of his burns.

Clark, who followed his brother Sean into the Army, was serving with the 40th Engineers when his unit was called into Iraq from Kuwait a month or so ago.

"They were on Humvees escorting other people," O'Brien said. "They were basically assigned to look for land mines. They hit one and the gas tank exploded."

"We're doing about as well as can be expected," Norm Shaffer said of himself and his wife, Jackie. "We had our cry. We're going to celebrate his life."

[Cedar]

Prayers for the family.

[359Henrie]

It was a painful read this morning.