Once Randazzo’s hitch with the Reserves was up, he planned to study law enforcement. He died after his tank was hit by Iraqi artillery fire.
“I did 30 years [and] didn’t get a scratch,” said Mitchell’s father, a retired Air Force master sergeant. “My daughter’s been in for five months, and she’s dead.”
Killed on a reconnaissance mission, Haws was the first Army death by enemy fire. Last summer, Haws, who is divorced, became engaged to a teacher he met while stationed in Texas.
Known to his friends as “Sunshine Man,” the Puerto Rican-born Cotto hoped his military career would give him a way our of the poverty of the south Bronx.
His last letter home was somber. “He was contemplating his own existence,” says his father. “But he really felt that he would survive with the help of his fellow Marines.”
An engineering sophomore at West Virginia University, he first joined the Army Reserves in high school, where he played football. He was considering a career in the military.
Though he had a degree in data processing, Eichenlaub loved being a pilot. “He always said he would pay the Air Force to fly, if he had to,” said his widow, Patricia, last week.
Linderman joined the Marines soon after high-school graduation. He got married following boot camp. The corporal was killed by friendly fire near Khafji.
Collins had already served a hitch in the Army, but he rejoined when he couldn’t find steady work as a carpenter. His last tape-recorded letter spoke of his love for his wife and two children.
If I “get zapped here,” Pack wrote his father, “I am going to be thinking that I got killed for those little [Kuwaiti] kids that can’t do anything for themselves, instead of for oil.”
The father of three small children was one of the first Americans to be killed in the ground war, he died handling one of his own artillery shells.
In high school, he lettered in football and track; the engineering student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania was a volunteer fireman and served as an usher and Scripture reader in his church.
Clark worked as a secretary before being called up for duty. “She always believed that anything was possible and would try anything,” her family said in a statement.
While in the gulf, Stephenson became pen pal to a fifth-grade class in New York. After he died, the class created a memorial bulletin board. His brother, also a Marine, escorted his body home.
Another Desert Storm pen pal, Schroeder corresponded with second graders in his hometown–and advised them to go easy on their teacher.
A part-time college student, Mayes became engaged to David Fairbanks days before shipping out. But she left her engagement ring behind, fearing she’d lose it.
Middleton, who planned a military career, was one of two soldiers killed by friendly fire from a U.S. Apache helicopter. His wife learned of his death on their second wedding anniversary.
A friendly-fire casualty, Lumpkins died when his armored transport was hit by U.S. artillery fire.
A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Olson was on a reconnaissance mission over Kuwait when his plane was shot down by groundfire.
Talley was killed in action by friendly fire. His family is bitter about his death: “Not one drop of oil is worth the blood my grandson shed,” says grandmother Lou Anne Monroe.
Snyder, who was with the First Light Armored Infantry Battalion, was killed on a patrol mission almost three weeks before the ground war started.
Wolverton had already served four years in the Army before joining the Reserves, and worked selling parts for big trucks. He got married only last June.
“I think we all had a premonition that something was going to go wrong,” said Farnen’s father, Hugh, last week. His son died in the Scud attack on the barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
A casualty of the first sustained ground battle, Walker was the third generation of his family to fight in a war: “But he set the precedent of not coming home,” says his father.
Boliver worked in maintenance at Baptist Homes in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., where he met his wife, an aide. The couple had two children; before he shipped off, the family celebrated their daughter’s first birthday.
Bentzlin switched from the Army to the Marines because he liked the tougher regimen. Part Sioux, his tribal name was “Came from the Stars.”
After she got word that her son was dead, Rosalie Jones stepped out of her house, next to the Old Soldiers Cemetery, and lowered the family’s American flag to half-mast.
Following his four-year stint in the regular Army, he enlisted in the Reserves last spring to get money for community-college financial aid.
An avid athlete, Cooper tried out for the Olympic team in curling, a Scottish ice sport. He planned to become a physical therapist after his discharge, scheduled for May.
Jenkins, whose forebears came to the mother-lode town of Coulterville during the Gold Rush of the 1850s, planned to become a police officer.
Madison had been studying at a vocational school. Killed in the Scud attack on the Dhahran barracks, he leaves his wife, Leann, with a young son and daughter.
Rennison had just gotten a new job at a local meatpacking house when he was called up. Both he and his father, a civilian employee of the U.S. government, were stationed in the Persian Gulf.
Mongrella was a stocky man with a contagious grin. His father was a schoolteacher, but Mongrella, an average student, left college after a short stay to join the Marines.
The son of a master sergeant, Daniels kidded his father that he would have to salute his son someday–once the young man attained a high enough rank.
His parents were divorced, and Williams spent summers with his father in Oakland, Calif. He planned to return to Old Dominion College in Norfolk, Va., after his gulf duty.
A victim of the Dhahran Scud attack, Stone was assigned to a water-purification unit. He volunteered for gulf duty a week before he was killed, leaving behind a wife and baby daughter.
Before he shipped out, Shaw was working his way through community college. “It’s no consolation to know that out of the 500,000 soldiers over there, not that many got killed,” said a close friend.
An Army mechanic, Miller died when the maintenance truck he was driving took a direct hit of hostile fire. His father said that Mark believed “if he got killed in action, it would he an honorable way to go.”
The 17-year Army veteran was the father of four girls. Smith’s mother said that in his letters home he always wrote, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be home.”
Ecuadoran-born Fajardo came to the U.S. at age 12. The Citadel graduate died leading his 100-man unit through a mine-field. “We miss him a lot,” said half brother Luis Santiago, “but he was doing his job.”
The father of 5-year-old Stephen Jacob, Siko worked as a supervisor for a foam manufacturer in Derry, Pa. He was another victim of last week’s Scud hit in Dhahran.
Mills just completed a six-year hitch in the regular Army before being called back on Reserve duty. His son, Matthew. will be 2 in April, the same month that wife Pamela will give birth to their second child.
An honor student in high school, Worthy joined the Army right after graduation in 1987. He had been in Saudi Arabia only a week when he was killed; he was planning to be married next November.
In 1988, as a senior at the Virginia Military Institute, Plunk won best-all-around-cadet award. Assigned to an engineering battalion, he was killed last week on a mine-clearing mission near an airport in Kuwait.
Gregory, who graduated from a military high school in his home state, died last week of wounds he received earlier from a land mine.
ELISEO FELIX, 19 ALAN CRAVER, 32 STEVEN ATHERTON, 25 BRIAN SCOTT, 22 HAL REICHLE, 27 DOUCLAS BRADT, 29 AARON HOWARD, 20 JAMES TATUM, 21 WILLIAN PALMER, 23 BRIAN LANE, 20 CHIRS STEPHENS, 28 STANLEY BARTUSIAK, 34 JERRY LEON KING, 20 CHRISTIAN PORTER, 20 KENNETH PERRY, 23 DUANE HOLLEN JR., 24 ROBERT DWYER, 32 ANDREW MOLLER, 23 JOHN BOXLER, 44 LUIS DELGADO, 30 MICHAEL HARRIS JR., 26
BALDWIN SATCHELL, 31 SCOTT BIANCO, 21 RAMONO POOLE, 21 RICHARD LEE, 36 MICHAEL NOLINE, 20 WADE HECTOR, 22 MICHAEL CONNER SR., 32 TODD RITCH, 20 JAMES CROCKFORD, 30 LEONARD RUSS, 26 IRA FOREMAN, 30 ADRIAN HART, 28 ADAM HOAGE, 19 DAVID AMES,30 DALE PAULSON, 36 EUGENE McCARTHY, 35 DAVID TAPLEY, 39 MANUEL RIVERA JR., 31 JORGE ARTEAGA, 26 PETER SWANO JR., 20 JAMES SYLVIA, 23 KENNETH JACKSON, 22 ELOY RODRIGUEZ JR., 34 BOBBY McKNIGHT, 25 HENRY SANDERS, 42 BOBBY WARE, 21 CHARLES WALKER, 19 JEFFREY OLSON, 27 MICHAEL ANDERSON, 36 JONATHAN EDWARDS, 34 JEFFREY REEL, 21 MICHAEL COOKE, 22 CHARLES COOPER, 33 JOHN GILLESPIE, 34 GARY CRASK, 21 MARIO VEGA VELAZQUEZ, 35 DALE CORMIER, 30 ARTHUR GARZA, 20 PATRICK HURLEY, 37 ALBERT HADDAD JR., 22 JAMES THORP, 30 DAVID HERR JR., 28 BERNARD (SEAN) WINKLEY, 27 JEFFREY ROLLINS, 23 GARLAND HAILEY, 37 ERIC HEDEEN, 27 THOMAS HAGGERTY, 26 REUBEN KURK III, 19 KURTIS BENZ, 22 MICHAEL ALLEN, 32 DAVID SHAW, 33 DANIEL GRAYBEAL, 25 SCOTT RUSH, 19 MICHAEL ROBSON, 30 LAWRENCE WELCH, 41 STEVEN TRAUTMAN, 21
