Names, Stories, and Pictures of the Fallen Heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Pentagon has just released the names of two more US Marines who were killed in Iraq. I'll post as soon as I find that.

Army Pfc. Marlin Rockhold

http://www.daytondailynews.com/localnews/content/localnews/daily/0510hamilton.html

Sniper kills Hamilton soldier in Iraq
Private joined Army two days after getting married

By Lisa Bernard and Whitney Ellis
Cox News Service

HAMILTON | Eileen Henderson opened a letter Thursday that her grandson, Pfc. Marlin Rockhold, mailed from Iraq three weeks ago.

“To take a man’s life is more than I’ve ever cared to do, but it was either them or me,” Rockhold wrote. “I don’t know what they were told, but God told me I was coming home!”

Rockhold, 23, was killed Thursday by a sniper’s bullet as he directed morning traffic at a bridge in Baghdad, Defense Department officials said Friday. Rockhold, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Army Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Stewart, Ga., was one of two soldiers killed by gunfire in separate incidents that day.

Davonna Rockhold, at home at Fort Stewart, said she was awaiting word from the Army about whether the sniper had been captured.

She said the last time she spoke to her husband was Sunday — for only five minutes.

“We talked about how much we missed each other and how much we loved each other. He was expecting to come home at the end of the month, right before my birthday,” said Davonna, 28.

Marlin, a 1998 Hamilton High School graduate, joined the Army last March 4, two days after they married.

He left Fort Stewart for Kuwait on Jan. 20

“Before he left he said that he didn’t want to leave me and our daughter, but he knew that he had to go,” Davonna said. “I hugged him and kissed and started walking away, and he called me back and said, ‘Baby I'll be back.’ ”

Davonna said she and their 8-year-old daughter, Therashia Jones-Rockhold, were surrounded by friends. Now living more than 700 miles from the home in southwest Ohio she and her husband once knew, Davonna recalled a phrase they often shared: “If you live to be 100, I want to be 100 minus one day, so I never have to spend a day without you.”

She said she wonders what he was thinking that day. “I’ll never know what the last thing he wanted to say to me was. My husband was a good man. He didn’t have an enemy in this world. He never did anything bad to anybody.”

Eileen Henderson, 69, who described her grandson as quiet and well-behaved, said he also was a kind of serious thinker.

“Marlin had said for a long time that he wanted to get out of Hamilton to see how the rest of the world was living,” she said. “It was something that he really wanted to do — join the service. Its been quite a shock, but my trust in God and the support of my family and all my friends have helped me to carry on.”

Marlin was a high school football teammate of Benjamin Moore, who was killed in an Army training accident Feb. 21.

Marlin also is survived by brothers Keith, Anton, Gregory and Derrick Henderson; sisters Brooke and Kara Henderson; his mother, Mary Henderson; and his father, Gary Rockhold.

They aren’t the only ones who will remember Marlin as a hero.

“The reason he joined the Army is because he wanted to help people, he wanted to be a hero,” said his cousin, 9-year-old Kevin Henderson Jr.

“I wish I could see him walking on Earth alive one more time,” the boy said.

“Yeah,” said another cousin, Yjohnea Tipton, “but he’ll be looking down on us.”

Army Chief Warrant Officer Brian Van Dusen.

http://www.tdn-net.com/articles/2003/05/13/news/news10.txt

Brother says former Ohio resident believed in saving lives

GROVEPORT, Ohio (AP) — A former Ohio resident killed in Iraq last week died while performing the kind of mission that was his reason for joining the Army, his brother said.

"He believed in saving lives, not taking them," David Van Dusen said in describing Army Chief Warrant Officer Brian Van Dusen.

The younger of the two brothers was one of three soldiers killed Friday when their UH-60 air medical helicopter crashed into the Tigris River during the rescue of an Iraqi child wounded in an explosion.

Brian Van Dusen, 39, formerly of Columbus, lived with his wife, 6-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The three soldiers were assigned to the 571st Air Ambulance Medical Company at Fort Carson. A memorial service for them is scheduled Friday at Fort Carson.

The other dead soldiers were identified as Chief Warrant Officer Hans N. Gukeisen, 31, of Lead, S.D.; and Sgt. Richard P. Carl, 26, of King Hill, Idaho.

The Defense Department said the helicopter was one of two sent from Tikrit to Samaria to pick up the child, who had suffered serious head injuries.

The child was loaded into the first helicopter, which took off safely.

As the second helicopter lifted off, it snagged a power line, then flipped into the Tigris, the Pentagon said. The impact threw one crew member into the river, where he was recovered by the first helicopter.

"I don't know whether it was a lack of communication from the first helicopter to the second helicopter, but he took off and the second helicopter had to be him," David Van Dusen told Columbus television station WBNS on Monday.

"He might have been too close to the wire, or maybe he just didn't see it. We'll have to wait until the investigation comes out," said the elder Van Dusen, 41, who lives in this Columbus suburb.

Brian Van Dusen had been flying military helicopters for 19 years.

David Van Dusen said he wasn't sure whether his brother or the craft's co-pilot was at the controls when the crash occurred.

The Pentagon didn't publicly identify the casualties until Sunday night, but David Van Dusen got the news in a phone call from his mother Saturday morning.

He said he last spoke to his brother four weeks ago on the day he shipped out from Fort Carson.

The two men were making plans for an annual deer hunting trip in December.

"You just can't take anything for granted," David Van Dusen said. "I'm going to miss him. He was a good brother and a great father. God bless him, wherever he is."

Army Seargent Richard P. Carl

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~6439~1386946,00.html

Ft. Carson soldiers who died in Iraq recalled with pride
By Eileen Kelley, Special to The Denver Post
On Friday, Audrey Carl became a widow at the age of 23.

Three days later, a Mother's Day card arrived at her home in rural southern Idaho all the way from the Persian Gulf. Cpl. Richard Paul Carl had wanted Audrey, the mother of his two children and his wife of six years, to know how much he loved her.

Carl, 25, of Glenns Ferry, Idaho, and formerly of Colorado Springs; Chief Warrant Officer Brian Keith Van Dusen, 39, of Colorado Springs; and Hans N. Gukeisen, 31, of Lead, S.D., were killed Friday on a mercy flight. The soldiers, of Fort Carson's 571st Medical Company, were helping to save an injured Iraqi girl.

Army officials say their Black Hawk helicopter crashed into the Tigris River in the vicinity of Samarra, Iraq. Their deaths bring to four the number of Fort Carson soldiers who have been killed since the war in Iraq began.

A memorial service at Butts Army Airfield at Fort Carson is tentatively scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m., Fort Carson officials said.

A fourth member of the unit was able to escape from the helicopter after it crashed into the river. Officials, who still have not released his identity, told The Post on Monday that the soldier was in critical condition.

More than 1,000 Army members attended a service for the fallen soldiers in Iraq on Sunday, said Margaret Gukeisen, Hans Gukeisen's mother. During that ceremony, Carl was posthumously promoted from corporal to sergeant.

"He was a good man," Audrey Carl said of her husband. "He always put others ahead of himself. His family is very proud of him."

Audrey Carl said her husband had a penchant for building model helicopters and fixing things. He joined the Army for the additional training and because of his love of tinkering around with machines. He had hoped one day to go to college, Audrey Carl said. Carl would have turned 26 on June 1. The couple has two children, Dominick, 18 months, and Elyann, 3.

Army Chief Warrant Officer Hans Gukeisen

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2003/05/13/news/local/top/news01.txt

Fallen soldier remembered fondly

Scripps Howard News Service

Chief Warrant Officer Hans Gukeisen was tattooed with a sense of humor and a sense of savvy: on his calf, an inky image of the bumbling-but-tenderhearted cartoon hero Dudley Do-Right; on his shoulder were his initials, "Hg" written as the symbol for mercury.

"He loved chemistry - for a while, he thought that's what he wanted to do," his father, Terry Gukeisen, said. "Chemistry, trigonometry and physics.

"But he also loved Dudley," Gukeisen said of the fun-loving 31-year-old who reveled in life's simplicities and complications:

Pickup trucks and the physics of flight. Coming to the rescue. Helicopters.

Gukeisen was one of three soldiers stationed at Fort Carson, Colo., killed Friday near Samarrah, Iraq, when a UH-60 air medical helicopter crashed in the Tigris River while the soldiers tried to rescue an Iraqi child, according to military officials.

Gukeisen died along with Chief Warrant Officer Brian K. Van Dusen, 39, of Columbus, Ohio, and Sgt. Richard P. Carl, 26, of King Hill, Idaho. The men - assigned to the 571st Medical Company (Air Ambulance) - died after their helicopter apparently snagged on a power line during the mission.

Another soldier from the downed chopper escaped and is recovering in a military hospital. The child, who was injured in an earlier explosion, was rescued by a second helicopter.

A memorial service is scheduled Friday at Fort Carson to remember the men.

Gukeisen entered the military in 1989, right out of high school in Lead and was shipped to the Persian Gulf for the first war with Iraq. From his position in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, he sucked in plenty of soot from the Kuwait oil fires and spat black phlegm for 18 months after returning, his father said.

Still, at the onset of the latest war, he went back, this time from the air, looking to help. According to his father, that was always his first choice.

"He was always kind in school," Terry Gukeisen said. "He was kind to the kid nobody talked to. I think that's one reason he was flying medevac instead of Apaches."

Gukeisen was also a proponent of beating weapons into plowshares - or, to be more precise, pickup trucks.

"I talked to one of his best friends yesterday," his father said. "Hans sent him a supercharger off an Iraqi self-propelled artillery piece. He told him he could use it on his pickup."

On his forearm, Gukeisen wore one other tattoo.

"It was one I didn't really approve of," his father said. "Aces and 8s. The dead man's hand."

In Iraq, comrades held services for the men over the weekend, during which Carl received a posthumous promotion from corporal to sergeant.

Army Spec. David T. Nutt

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/iraq/5898810.htm

Family of Fort Campbell soldier remember his character, courage
SAMIRA JAFARI
Associated Press

ATLANTA - The family of a Fort Campbell, Ky., soldier killed in a traffic accident in Iraq remembered him Monday as "a gentle person, very caring - just a good man."

"He was just a proud, wonderful man," said his wife, Heidi Nutt, from their home on post. "A strong soldier who never complained about nothing."

Spec. David T. Nutt, 32, of Blackshear, was driving a five-ton truck near Mosul Wednesday when he swerved to avoid an automobile driven by an Iraqi civilian, Fort Campbell officials said. The truck overturned and Nutt was killed.

Nutt was a member of the 494th Transportation Company, 101st Corps Support Group at Fort Campbell.

Nutt entered the Army in July 1995. He met his wife, who was working in child services at Fort Campbell, the following year.

They were married seven months later.

"I knew it from the moment I met him," she said. The couple have a 4-year-old daughter, Emily.

Nutt was deployed to Iraq on March 6 with his unit, which was responsible for transporting soldiers and equipment.

His unit had also been deployed to Kosovo for nearly four years, before returning home late last year.

When he wasn't thinking about his job, Nutt enjoyed spending time with his family and taking care of their daughter, his wife said.

Heidi Nutt last spoke to her husband on May 12, the day after Mother's Day. She said she remembers every word of the conversation.

"He wanted to wish me a happy anniversary and he couldn't wait to come home to see us," she said.

The funeral for Nutt will be held Wednesday at the Tyringham Union Church in Tyringham, Mass., just three days before the couple's wedding anniversary.

"It's the place he fell in love with," Heidi said. "He'll be buried at the cemetery at the church where we were married."

A memorial service also will be held at Fort Campbell on Wednesday.

Marine Cpl. Cedric Eugene Bruns

http://www.oregonlive.com/metronorth/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_north_news/1053518634278300.xml

Washington Marine killed in Kuwait is laid to rest

HOLLEY GILBERT

VANCOUVER -- The skies were gray Tuesday, but two services honoring the life of a U.S. Marine killed this month in Kuwait were red, white and blue.

More than 200 family members and friends who came to remember Lance Cpl. Cedric Eugene Bruns were given small U.S. flags as they filled a Vancouver funeral chapel to overflowing.

Some wore red vests or tiny flag pins. Bruns' flag-draped casket stood in front of sprays of red and white carnations accented by blue irises and delphiniums.

Marines in crisp dress uniforms stood two-deep at the back of Evergreen Staples Funeral Chapel.

Bruns, 22, died May 9 in a vehicle accident in Kuwait. A 2000 Prairie High School graduate, he was assigned to the Marine Corps Reserve 6th Engineer Support Battalion, which was attached to the 1st Marine Division in Kuwait.

He was the first Marine from Southwest Washington to die in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Seven Oregon soldiers have died in the campaign.

Once Bruns' family was seated and music ranging from Tupac Shakur to Roberta Flack was turned off, friends and loved ones shared their thoughts.

An aunt read a recent letter in which Bruns told of being stationed 28 miles from Iraq, in a camp where the temperature never dropped below 75 degrees, and quick dust storms could reduce visibility to two inches.

It was there, he told his aunt, that he learned to appreciate things that Americans take for granted: showers, clean clothes, freedom.

Will Sherland, Phil Ferguson and Brandon Brooks, Bruns' three best friends, told of their brotherly love and admiration for him. If the four of them were the elements, one said, Bruns would be earth: strong, confident and direct.

Deborah L. Bruns, Cedric's mother, read a letter from a stranger that had deeply touched her, her husband, Peter, and their son, Nick, 19.

It was from the mother of another 22-year-old Marine lance corporal who was safely away from the remnants of the war in Iraq. It said: Take comfort that there are others who feel your grief and are grateful for your sacrifice.

Another aunt, Carol Frachella of Maine, shared a message a co-worker sent her: Rest assured that the U.S. Marines stand by one another to the end.

Bruns was "a young man we and all America can be proud of," said his uncle, the Rev. Stephen Giles of Mount Mariah Ministry in Glenmont, N.Y.

"He lived by the code of the U.S. Marine Corps -- Semper Fi, always faithful," Giles said. "I am humbled by his sacrifice and saddened by his death and proud to be a fellow Marine."

Cedric's life was one of usefulness, he said. It was one of faithfulness.

"He was a faithful soldier, a faithful defender, a faithful Marine, a faithful son. A young man of valor," Giles said.

After the service, Bruns' casket was escorted by Portland police to Willamette National Cemetery.

There, under a timber-roofed shelter, Bruns' friends and relatives stood. His parents and brother sat in folding chairs. From a nearby hillside came the strains of a piper in the Portland Police Bureau's Highland Guard.

A tall Marine stood at the front of the room.

Six Marine pallbearers carried in the dark-brown casket and placed it on a bier. They grasped the flag, raised it and settled it smoothly on the casket.

They saluted slowly, turned and left, standing at parade rest on the sidewalk.

Holding his wife's hand, Peter Bruns reached for Nick's.

They listened to and prayed with U.S. Navy Chaplain Bill Gasser, who formerly was assigned to Bruns' Eugene-based unit. He talked about the fragility of life, how quickly it can be taken and what waits after death for followers of Jesus Christ.

Dressed in a red jacket, Gordon Morgan, a 1st Marine Division Association member, read a poem called "The Title."

It ends: "You alone and our own/Have earned it/With your sweat, blood and lives./You own it forever/the title, U.S. Marine."

Debbie, Peter and Nick Bruns rose and faced a detail of seven Marines carrying rifles. They embraced one another as the seven fired three times in the traditional 21-gun salute.

A bugler on the hill played taps.

Two more Marines walked in. One went to the foot of the casket and one to its side. The Marine who had kept vigil at the room's front went to the head of the casket.

The three lifted the flag from Bruns' casket and slowly folded it into a blue-starred triangle. The spent rounds from the 21-gun salute were tucked inside.

Two more salutes and the flag was handed to Maj. Dennis Larson, the casualty assistance officer assigned to the Bruns family.

He handed the flag to Debbie Bruns.

"On behalf of the president of the United States, the Marine Corps and a grateful nation, please accept this flag in honor of Cedric's faithful service to his country," Larson said.

He saluted the family. They embraced Larson, one by one.

Then Debbie Bruns, clutching the flag, stepped forward, placed her hand on her son's casket and spoke words only she could hear.

Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew R. Smith

http://www.theheraldbulletin.com/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=45106?hb_story

Matthew Smith remembered by family on poignant Memorial Day

Publication date:
Sunday, May 25, 2003

BY STACEY M. LANE GROSH

Features Reporter

Three weeks before he was to return home, three weeks before his 21st birthday, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Smith died in Kuwait.

The week before, Smith's mother, Patricia, received her first letter from her son since the war began. It was dated April 24. Now the family wonders if more letters will come as well.

Deployed to Kuwait in February, Smith became the first casualty from Madison County during Operation Enduring Freedom when the vehicle he was driving the night of May 10 crashed into a parked vehicle at the side of the road. He is now one of more than 160 American casualties from the war.

Smith was a Marine Reservist who was assigned to Detachment 1, Communications Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion, 4th Force Service Support Group, based in Peru, Ind. He grew up in Anderson.

Dave, Smith's father, answered the shrill ring of the phone that weekend. His other son, Mason, was on the other line and couldn't quite get out the words he needed to warn his dad.

"He just couldn't seem to say it," said Mason's wife, Jennifer. "And I offered to tell him for him."

Mason was calling to tell his dad that Smith had been killed and any minute now, two Marines would be knocking at his door to deliver the news.

"The first words out of his mouth were 'Matt's dead' and from there the whole family just fell apart," Dave said. "You can't prepare for losing a child."

"We had just gotten the news that he'd probably be home in a few weeks," added Jennifer, 23.

The news hit Smith's aunt, Vicki Buck, particularly hard since she also had to explain the death to an entire classroom of elementary children. Buck is a student teacher at South Elementary, Pendleton. Her class had written Smith letters of love and encouragement.

But things kept delaying the delivery of those letters. One boy was absent and wanted to write a letter to Smith too, so she waited. Another boy asked if he could bring in a package of Lifesavers for the Marines because he had heard they needed them. So the package was delayed again.

One thing or another prevented those letters from being mailed out. Then the news came. In the midst of the children's sorrow, they responded back to Buck with questions and comments of their own. In letters they told her how important and brave her nephew was, how they could identify with death through the loss of siblings, parents and grandparents and they were there for her if she needed a hug.

Mason and Jennifer have three little boys ages four and under who they had to explain Smith's death to - when they didn't understand themselves. The oldest, Tyler, will probably hardly remember anything about his uncle - except for what his parents tell him. But Tyler was full of questions when he heard the news. How would he recognize Smith in heaven - won't he have wings? Tyler would look outside on an overcast day and comment how hard it was to see Smith in heaven because of the clouds. And if Smith was his guardian angel now, did that mean he would never get a boo-boo again?

A LIFELONG DREAM

When he was still in diapers, Smith wanted to be a soldier.

In a collage of pictures his family has created to remember his life, he's running around naked except for a diaper and a military helmet. The photos scan throughout Smith's life: amusement park rides, track, baseball and football teams, moments with his family and friends, prom, time he spent with his only sibling, Mason.

"He always wanted to do anything Mason did, since he was about 10," joked Jennifer. Mason's now 25.

Rugby became a passion for Smith after he saw Mason play.

"(Mason) came home and was covered in mud," David said. "We had to lay papers down in the car to bring him home. There was still mud in his eyes when he got home. After that, Matt started playing and told people that football was a sissy sport."

Patrick Ford, a friend of Smith's since their freshman year at Pendleton Heights High School, found their friendship growing through their fondness for rugby - of which Smith played at Indiana University. But what friendship doesn't have its ornery moments and practical jokes?

"We were good friends and then I wised up when I found out what he was really like," laughed Ford, a freshman and rugby player at Purdue University. "One time he grabbed me and rubbed Nair on my legs!"

But there was another side of Smith, a less rowdy side.

"He could be very intense," Buck said.

"Matt loved to argue - not because he was mad but just because he loved to argue," added Jennifer. "If halfway (through the argument) you started to change your mind, he got to the other side of the argument to defend it just to argue some more.... He'd know the latitude and longitude of cities!"

Smith was a fact-junkie. He absorbed information about history. He knew the Civil War backwards and forwards since he was a kid, joked his father. Smith took vacations that would involve every historical landmark they could find and was a whiz at Trivial Pursuit.

"He loved to argue with the History Channel," Ford said. "He'd argue that they were re-enacting something and that wasn't an exact replica of a helmet or something."

An aunt gave Tyler a G.I. Joe Marine and Smith argued that he shouldn't play with it because the complete uniform on the toy wasn't authentic.

Smith took that love of history to Indiana University where he was just able to complete one semester en route to a degree in history when he was a Marine Reservist status was activated. But his third-grade teacher, Chris Dietrick, saw that spunk and love for what's right when he was in her class at East Elementary.

"Some students you just remember," Dietrick said. "He was such a bright spot in the class. He was the most serious nine-year-old I'd ever met. I had to talk to him one time because he knocked down a boy for not treating a girl right."

"He used to stand up to people in the lunch line," Dave said. "He'd try to straighten things out when people started crowding or trying to cut. I kept having to tell him, 'You're not the enforcer (of rules).' He just always worked hard at everything, trying to make things right for everyone. In retrospect, I can now see how he worked for all of us."

"He knew the power of one," said Ford, 20. "He was capable of anything."

Letters Smith had written to his family spoke little about his actual work in Kuwait but focused mainly on his family, missing home, his upcoming 21st birthday and his need to be a part of this war. Smith was a radio operator and managed trips for military personnel between Iraq and Kuwait. It was on one of these trips, returning from Baghdad, that he died in a vehicle accident.

"He'd write about those living over there and how he felt sorry for them," Dave said. "He said they were so welcoming to the soldiers, holding signs up thanking them for being there, for helping them. They didn't have a choice about being there. They weren't there because they wanted to be."

"He was truly a Marine," David continued, "telling people: 'You sleep when you couldn't do anything else.'"

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.