Friday the Department of Defense announced the deaths of two U.S. Army soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington who were killed in separate incidents while supporting combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq:
Sgt. Adam J. Ray, 23, of Louisville, KY, and
Pfc. Adriana Alvarez, 20, of San Benito, TX
Pfc. Alvarez was a member of 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade. Sgt. Ray was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.
Since 2001, there have been 989 American troops killed in Afghanistan. Since 2003, there have been 4376 American troops killed in Iraq. They all had loved ones, families and friends.
Please take a moment to remember them and reflect upon their sacrifice.
Pfc. Adriana Alvarez, 20, of San Benito, Texas, died Feb. 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained while supporting combat operations. She was assigned to the 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.
"She was very young," her older sister, Alma Alvarez, said as tears welled in her eyes. "She was just a normal teenager, 20-year-old, who had dreams and everything. Just knowing she's not going to come back, that breaks my heart."
Pfc. Adriana Alvarez, 20, became the Texas Rio Grande Valley’s first servicewoman to be killed in the Iraq war. Alvarez is the Valley’s 30th service member to die in Iraq, and the third from San Benito to die. The U.S. Army policewoman was found Wednesday in Baghdad with a gunshot wound, and Military officials are investigating Alvarez’s death.
Alma Alvarez said she spoke with her sister on Monday, about two days before her death. "It was something different for her," Alma Alvarez said of her sister’s tour in Iraq. "She said everything was fine." She had just turned 20 years old in November. "That was the last time we saw her, when she came home for her birthday in November," said Alma.
Pfc. Alvarez graduated from San Benito High School in 2008 with dreams of becoming a police officer. She wanted to serve her country and felt the experience as a military police officer would help her career in the criminal justice department.
Her family was devastated when she left for Iraq last August, to serve a one-year tour of duty. "We didn’t want her to go but there was nothing we could do," Alma Alvarez said. "She knew there were risks. She knew she had to do it for her country. She did what she had to do and she was proud of it."
State Rep. Eddie Lucio III hailed Alvarez as a hometown hero. "The Rio Grande Valley, as Texas, has lost many — too many — like Pfc. Alvarez. She is unique, however, because she is the first young woman from our community to lose her life in this war," Lucio said in a news release.
"I know that this is a difficult time for the Alvarez family but I know how proud our nation and the community of San Benito are of Pfc. Adriana Alvarez’s selfless service in defense of the United States," U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi said in a news release.
Pfc. Adriana Alvarez will be missed. REST IN PEACE
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Sgt. Adam J. Ray, 23, of Louisville, Ky., died Feb. 9 in southern Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.
"He was my younger brother, but he was more like a big brother to all of us. He looked out for us, he took care of us," his sister Amanda Ray said, referring to her family, which includes a sister, and two brothers.
"It’s very hard and very unreal to us right now to accept this, because in my heart I don’t feel like he’s gone," she said.
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Sgt. Adam Ray enlisted in the Army in 2005 after high school. He completed basic and trained as a patient administration specialist and served a year-long tour of duty at Camp Casey, Korea. After returning to the states in February 2007, the Army assigned Ray to a medical center at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Ray joined his Stryker brigade a year later as a rifleman, following infantryman training at Fort Benning. He was deployed to Afghanistan in July 2009, on his first combat tour.
The Army promoted Ray posthumously to sergeant from his previously held rank of specialist.
During his service, Ray received several military honors, including the Combat Infantryman Badge and the Afghanistan Campaign Medal-Army Service Ribbon.
Sgt. Adam J. Ray will be missed. REST IN PEACE
(U.S. Air Force photo/Brianne Zimny) (source) and (source)
(Photos found at source links, and by CalNM. Thanks to Timroff for our IGTNT logo.)
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Helping our troops: If you wish to assist our military and their families, consider Operation Helmet, or Fisher House. Sponsoring a deployed service member at TroopCarePackage.com can provide letters or care packages that make a real difference in a military person's life. To assist the animal companions of our deployed military, information is available here.
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About the IGTNT series: I Got the News Today is intended to honor, respect and remind. Its title is a reminder that almost every day a military family gets the terrible news about a loved one. All of the U.S. casualties can be seen here. The DoD news releases are found here. Published photos of the returning fatalities are found on the Dover AFB page. Diaries about the fallen usually appear two days after their names are officially released, which allows time for the IGTNT team to find and tell their stories. Since 2001, there have been 989 American troops killed in Afghanistan. Since 2003, there have been 4376 American troops killed in Iraq.
Click the IGTNT tags below for previous diaries in the series which was begun by i dunno, and which is maintained by monkeybiz, noweasels, blue jersey mom, Chacounne, twilight falling, joyful, roses, SisTwo, a girl in MI, Spam Nunn, JeNoCo, Janos Nation, True Blue Majority, Proud Mom and Grandma, Sandy on Signal, and me, CalNM. These diaries are heartbreaking to write, but are an important service to those who have died, and show our community’s respect for our fallen brothers and sisters.
Please bear in mind that these diaries are read by friends and family of the service members chronicled here. May all of our remembrances be full of compassion rather than politics.