Bonners Ferry Local Guide including all of Boundary County Idaho

Remembering the Inland Northwest's fallen

Tuesday, May 29, 2007; KXLY

They are infantrymen, helicopter pilots, tankers and Green Berets. They are sons and daughters, husbands and wives. They come from Colville, Coeur dAlene, Washtucna, Pullman and Spokane. On this Memorial Day we remember the servicemen from the Inland Northwest who have lost their lives in service to their country in Iraq and Afghanistan. 2002 Marine Sergeant Nathan Hays, 21, was on a mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan when the KC-130 tanker he was flying on crashed into a mountainside in southwest Pakistan. Hays, a Wilbur native, was a member of Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 352 based at Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, California. 2003 Twenty-year-old Robert Benson was born in Coeur dAlene and went to school in Spokane. He married a girl he knew from school, joined the Army in 2001 and was stationed in Germany with A Company, 1st Battalion, 35th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Division. Specialist Benson died from a non-hostile gunshot wound in Baghdad, Iraq on November 4, 2003. Curt Jordan was a 25-year-old Army sergeant and was assigned to the 14th Combat Engineer Battalion (Corps) (Wheeled), 555th Combat Engineer Group, Fort Lewis, Washington. The Greenacres native died from non-combat injuries near Bayji, Iraq on December 28, 2003. On the day he died his brother Adam, an Army specialist, was stationed 10 miles away. Jordan left behind a wife and two children. 2004 Jeremiah Schmunk loved wrestling, boxing and weightlifting. He joined the Washington Army National Guard and was assigned to C Company, 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry headquartered in Moses Lake. The Richland native deployed to Iraq with the 81st Brigade in early 2004. Specialist Schmunk was killed in action when his squad was ambushed south of Baghdad on July 8, 2004. He died a month shy of his 21st birthday. Jason Cook hailed from Okanogan and made sure his fellow Marines remembered his wifes name by naming their Light Armored Vehicle after her. Sergeant Cook, 25, was assigned to the Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, California and was on his second tour in Iraq when he was killed in action in Anbar Province on August 21, 2004. Jacob Demand came from Palouse and joined the Army shortly after graduating from high school. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Lewis. Sergeant Demand, 29, was killed in action when his patrol came under enemy attack west of Mosul, Iraq on September, 14, 2004. Luke Wullenwaber graduated from high school in Lewiston and went on to the Virginia Military Institute, where he graduated from in 2002. He served with the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division based in South Korea. Captain Wullenwaber, 24, was killed in Khaladiyah, Iraq on November 16, 2004 when a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives nearby. Blain Ebert came from Washtucna and enlisted in the Army before graduating from high school. He later got married and in the Army he was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Specialist Ebert, 22, was shot and killed by a sniper at a roadblock near Baghdad in November 22, 2004. Harley Miller was born in Sandpoint and lived in Spokane Valley before joining the Army. Miller joined the Army and was assigned to Task Force Saber, D Troop, 3-4 Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division (Light), Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. Specialist Miller, 21, died in a plane crash in Bamian, Afghanistan on November 27, 2004, leaving behind his wife Sarah and infant son Korey. Damien Ficek, 26, was a former Army Ranger, attended classes at Washington State University and he and his wife Kyla had plans for starting a family. He was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq when his Army National Guard unit, C Company, 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry, was mobilized for federal service. Less than six weeks before his deployment was to end, Sergeant Ficek was killed during a combat patrol in downtown Baghdad. 2005 Clint Prather enlisted in the Army as a medic and served during the first Gulf War. He went on to become a warrant officer and a helicopter pilot, got married and served a combat tour in Iraq. The Cheney native then deployed to Afghanistan in early 2005 with his unit, 5th Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment, 12th Aviation Brigade, Gielbelstadt, Germany. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Prather, 32, died along with 15 others when the CH-47 they were flying on went down during a sandstorm near Ghazni, Afghanistan. Travis Nixon was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and spent his childhood in St. John, where he graduated from St. John-Endicott High School in 1999. Nixon joined the Army where he served with the 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Staff Sergeant Nixon, 24, was a squad leader and died after his patrol was attacked by enemy forces with small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire near Lwara, Afghanistan on October 29, 2005. 2006 1st Lieutenant Jaime Campbell was a former Washington State rodeo queen from Ephrata who attended Washington State University and decided to pursue a career in aviation with the National Guard, eventually becoming a Blackhawk helicopter pilot in the Alaska Army National Guard stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska along with her husband, Captain Sam Campbell. Campbell, 25, was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 207th Aviation Regiment, Alaska Army National Guard when her Blackhawk helicopter crashed near Tal Afar, Iraq on January 7, 2006, killing Campbell, three other members of her crew and eight passengers. Senior Airman Alecia Good served in two important roles in her life. She was a mother first, and she was also a tactical radio operator and maintainer stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base. Good, 23, was assigned to the 92nd Communications Squadron and deployed in early February as part of Joint Task Force Horn of Africa in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She had only been deployed to the region for a few days when she was killed in the crash of two CH-53 helicopter into the Gulf of Aden off Djibouti. Eight Marines and one other airman were killed in the crash. Army 1st Lieutenant Forrest Ewens hailed from Addy and attended Whitworth College, where he captained the 2004 track team. He also participated in the ROTC program at Whitworth, which is where he met his future wife Megan, a 2003 Gonzaga graduate. Lt. Ewens, 25, was assigned to 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y. He and another soldier were killed in action on June 16, 2006 when their all-terrain vehicle hit a makeshift bomb during combat operations in the Pech River Valley in Afghanistan. Lucas White grew up in Oregon but most recently called Moses Lake home. An enrolled member of the Umatilla tribe, White joined the Army in 2001 and served a tour in Afghanistan with the 10th Mountain Division before joining the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division stationed at Fort Lewis. Sergeant White, 28, was killed in action on November 26, 2006 when his patrol was attacked by enemy forces in Baghdad. 2007 Darrel Morris graduated from Ferris High School in Spokane and enlisted in the Marine Corps. During his first tour in Iraq he was wounded in action and went back to Iraq for a second tour. Corporal Morris, 21, was killed in action during combat operations in Anbar Province, Iraq on January 21, 2007. Morris was 2nd Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. Travis Pfister, 27, was a 1997 graduate of Hanford High School in the Tri-Cities where he wrestled and played football. He joined the Marines, where he rose to the rank of sergeant and met his wife Jennifer, also a Marine. Pfister was on his third tour in Iraq and a month from coming home when his CH-46 Sea Knight transport helicopter crashed on Febraury 7, 2007 in Anbar Province, Iraq, killing five Marines and two sailors onboard. Sergeant Pfister was assigned to Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. Army Specialist Ryan Bell, 21, was originally from Colville and attended school in Chewelah before transferring to the Riverside Military Academy in Georgia, where he graduated with honors in 2003. Bell enlisted in the Army and served with the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C. He was married to wife Teri less than a year and a month shy of his 22nd birthday when he and several members of his platoon were killed when their patrol was attacked with a makeshift bomb during combat operations in Samarra, Iraq on March 5, 2007. Kelly Grothe from Spokane Valley enlisted in the Army Reserves and was assigned to Company B, 321st Engineer Battalion of the U.S. Army Reserve based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Specialist Grothe, 21, was killed during a mine clearing mission along with another soldier when his armored vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device near Ramadi, Iraq. Grothe was one of his units first combat casualties since World War II. Sergeant Major Bradly Conner was a Tacoma native who was raised in Coeur dAlene. He joined the Army in 1987 and eventually joined the Special Forces, serving in the 10th Special Forces Group before his last assignment as a company sergeant major with 2nd Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group at Fort Lewis. Conner, 41, was on his fourth combat tour in Iraq when he was killed on May 9, 2007 when his uparmored vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device. He leaves behind a wife, Cynthia and three children. - Full Story