When the list of eight dead was released by the DoD on Monday, these four were included:
• Army Specialist Andre D. Mitchell who was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment of Fort Hood, Texas. He died July 31st in Mosul, Iraq.
• Army Sergeant Ryan P. Baumann who was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He died August 1st on Route Alaska, Afghanistan.
• Army Specialist Kevin R. Dickson who was assigned to the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Group Support Battalion, Group Service Support Company, Fort Carson, Colorado. He died on August 2nd in Balad, Iraq.
• Army Private 1st Class Jennifer L. Cole who was assigned to the 426th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky. She died on August 2nd in Bayji, Iraq.
The other four were from Fort Hood, and died together in the same incident. JeNoCo generously offered to help share the burden by writing about those four. Please, be sure to look for that diary later tonight.
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Army Specialist. Andre D. Mitchell
The names of 8 casualties of war announced by the DoD Monday included 5 Fort Hood soldiers killed overseas.
Military officials say Private 1st Class David Badie 2nd Lieutenant Michael Girdano, Specialist William Mulvihill and Private Jair De Jesus Garcia died in Afghanistan after their vehicle was bombed. All four were assigned to the 1st Infantry Division. (their story is told by JeNoCo)
The fifth Fort Hood soldier, Specialist Andre Mitchell, was killed when his Humvee overturned in Mosul, Iraq.
Andre Darnell Mitchell grew up in Elmont , New York. On Valentine's Day 2006, he joined the Army. Mitchell trained for 14 months at Fort Hood, Texas, and deployed to Iraq in November. He was assigned to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The 25-year-old died when the Humvee he was riding in overturned on a sharp curve.
Newsday.com quotes his mother, Yasmine Patterson:
"I said, 'Please go to college, and after that, you can do what you want to do,'" Patterson said.
Mitchell was a 2003 graduate of Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park and a 2005 graduate of Nassau Community College.
It appears Mitchell couldn't wait to enlist. First, he talked to Air Force recruiters before meeting with an Army representative. When the Army said it could take him sooner, he signed up, his mother said.
...Patterson called her son a leader and said he was dogged in pursuing his dreams. His goal was to secure a job working for the federal government in Washington, D.C.
He deployed to Iraq in November and had been scheduled to return home for a break later this month.
The New York Post states:
Yasmine Patterson's son prepared her before shipping out to Iraq last November. So when two solemn soldiers came to her Elmont, Queens, door last week, she knew why.
"Sir, I know what you're coming to tell me," she said. "My son is dead." ..."I was fully prepared," Patterson said. "I couldn't stop him from going into the military. He'd wanted to do this all his life."
The 2004 Nassau Community College grad worked at the Marriott in Uniondale and aspired to be a hotel manager. But the military was his first love and wearing the uniform his lifelong dream.
Andre achieved his dream, if for all too short a time. PSC Specialist Mitchell's body is scheduled to be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Saturday night. Besides his mother, he is survived by a brother, Malique Patterson, aged 12.
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Sergeant Ryan P. Baumann
Sgt. Ryan P. Baumann, 24, of Great Mills, Maryland, died in Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device (IED). Sgt. Baumann was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Ryan P. Baumann spent eight years of his childhood in Germany, where he picked up a foreign language and learned about Army life. When his family returned to the United States, they settled in Maryland. After graduating from Great Mills High School, he joined the Army in May 2004 and arrived at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in September 2004.
When he was a senior in high school, Sergeant Baumann met his future fiancée, Lauren Smith. They were to have been married January 10, 2009.
TheBaltimore Sun quotes Ryan’s mother and his dad:
"Ryan grew up around the military," said his mother, Cindy Lohman, who worked as a civilian nurse on a base in Germany. "It didn't surprise me. His heroes were guys in the 82nd [Airborne Division]. And he was a post-9/11 child, so he felt very committed to doing something to protect this country."
..."He kept saying he wanted to be part of the 101st, and he got in and did a good job. He really wanted to stay in and have it be a career. His e-mail was Army for Life," Ms. Lohman said.
..."When he got stationed at Ft. Campbell, I was ecstatic," Mr. Baumann said. "He'd come up every other weekend to spend time together."
The Bay Net.com news:
Sgt. Ryan P. Baumann, 24 of Great Mills, died Friday, Aug. 1, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device struck his vehicle in Afghanistan. Several weeks earlier, Sgt. Baumann’s convoy had been the victim of a similar attack, which he survived with only a minor concussion.
Unfortunately, while returning to the forward operating base early Friday morning, Sgt. Baumann’s side of the vehicle took the brunt of the attack and he did not survive. Sgt. Baumann was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division in Ft. Campbell, KY.
Sgt. Baumann had previously served a tour in Iraq and was four months into his tour in Afghanistan.
Maryland’s NBC4 station has a heart-breaking video about the state’s fallen son, and offers the following quotes:
"IEDs are the scariest thing for soldiers over there," said Baumann's stepfather Gary Lohman. "That's what they are. They're sucker punches. It's a way our enemies try to wear us down. The way they survive is by not letting it get to them."
Yet Baumann's parents said their son wanted to be out in the field. They said it was his passion.
"Many of those people really didn't have the opportunities he had had," his mother said. "Poverty is a problem. Lack of education is a problem. He saw that there were unfortunate situations. He saw that the troops were able to do some good."
Sergeant. Baumann is survived by mother, Cindy Lohman, of Great Mills, Maryland and father, Robert Baumann, of Jeffersonville, Indiana. He is also survived by his sister, Christina Baumann of Mesa, Arizona., step-father Gary Lohman of Lexington Park, Maryland, fiancée Lauren Smith of Lexington Park and his grandparents.
A memorial service will be held in Afghanistan. Sgt. Baumann will also be honored at Fort Campbell's monthly Eagle Remembrance Ceremony the second Wednesday of each month. His funeral will be held at Brinsfield Funeral Home in Leonardtown on August 11th. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. The Patriot Guard Riders will be attending.
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Army Specialist. Kevin R. Dickson
Kevin Randolf Dickson, a native of Steelville, Missouri joined the Army January 2006 and attended basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. He also attended Basic Airborne and Parachute Rigger Schools at Fort Benning, Georgia, before attending Advanced Individual Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
According to KSDK news, two families are suffering over the death of Kevin Dickson, his biological family and the family that raised him:
Norma Griggs may not have been his biological mother, but said Dickson still belonged to her.
"He wasn't mine by birth, but he was my kid and I would not trade, I would not trade it for anything," she said.
Griggs last heard from him Saturday when he left a phone message. She had no idea it would be the last time she'd hear his voice.
It was later that she got another call: the one she'd dreaded. The Army confirmed that Specialist Dickson had been killed in Iraq, shot in a non-combat related incident. The Army said the incident was still under investigation. The lack of information has been frustrating for loved ones.
Later in the story his teacher, Luayne Van Meter, said his service made him proud, and it made her proud, too.
"It seems like the military is where he finally came into his own and found his niche in the world," she said.
According to the KKTV Military headlines link:
Spc. Kevin R. Dickson, 21, a construction equipment repair specialist, assigned to the Group Support Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Carson, was pronounced dead from wounds August 2 at the Joint Balad Hospital.
...Dickson deployed for his first tour to Iraq in January 2007. He was on his second tour to Iraq at the time of his death.
Specialist Dickson has been awarded with several medals during his career, including Joint Service Achievement Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon.
He is survived by the Griggs' family, his mother, Catherine Ann Neidig, and two brothers. Dickson's two brothers are also in the Army, and one of them is now serving in Iraq. The family hopes that the brother will escort Specialist Dickson's body home.
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Army Private 1st Class Jennifer L. Cole
Army Pfc. Jennifer Cole, 34, enlisted in the military a year ago and was assigned to the 426th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. She had been in Iraq since March and was due to come home for an 18-day leave on August 11th. The Napa County, California resident died from a gunshot wound in Iraq on Saturday in a noncombat incident that is under investigation.
In a story at Press Demorcrat.com, the Private’s mother speaks to the press:
Cole’s mother, Candace Gholson, told The Napa Valley Register that her daughter was shot in a non-combat incident.
"All we know is she was shot. She was not on maneuvers. It was an accident. It could have been someone was cleaning their weapon, it went off and struck my daughter. I really don’t know all of the circumstances," according to the Register.
Cole was assigned to the 426th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, out of Fort Campbell, Ky. She enlisted in the Army a year ago after spending years as a designer in her mother’ floral business and had been working as a driver for a supply unit since getting dispatched to Iraq in March, according to her mother, Candace Gholson.
A story at SFGate.com offers another quote from Cole’s mother:
"She loved Iraq," Gholson said. "She thought we were really over there for a good purpose, and she loved the people and thought we were helping them, that we were making a difference."
Another SFGate story says:
She enlisted in the Army after working for her mother's floral business for most of her adult life. She graduated from Vintage High School in Napa in 1992 and took a few community college courses, but otherwise devoted herself to the family business, her mom said. "She was a great floral designer," Gholson said.
When Gholson sold her company, Cole worked briefly for another florist before deciding she wanted to make a major life change and join the military. Her older brother said she seemed to be following in his footsteps.
"I was very happy for her when she enlisted," said Jeffrey Cole of Menlo Park, who retired from the Army last year after a tour in Afghanistan. "My sister loved what she did, serving her country. She's the type of person to give you the shirt off her back. She'd help you out in any situation."
During her service the military awarded her a number of honors. She received the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Medal and an Army Service Ribbon.
A memorial service for the Cole will be held in Iraq. Fort Campbell holds a monthly Eagle Remembrance Ceremony the second Wednesday of each month.
Cole leaves behind a husband, Lamont C. Capers of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Cole is also survived by her mother, and two brothers, James and Jeffrey. Private 1st Class Cole will have a full military funeral, but the date has not yet been set.
Gov. Schwarzenegger issued a statement about Cole’s death:
"Private First Class Jennifer Cole fought with pride, honor and unyielding commitment to freedom and democracy. Her courage is an inspiration to all Californians and we will never forget her sacrifice. Maria and I send our condolences to Jennifer's family and friends."
Cole, 34, died Aug. 2 in Bayji, Iraq, of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident. Cole was assigned to the 426th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), U.S. Army, Fort Campbell, KY.
In honor of Pfc. Cole, Capitol flags will be flown at half-staff.
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