John Rutherford
By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
There's not a lot of information available on Army Staff Sgt. Jason L. Brown, a 29-year-old Green Beret killed April 17 in Iraq.
He was from Magnolia, Texas, north of Houston, and he graduated from Sam Houston State University with a degree in criminal justice. He enlisted in 2003 and was just two weeks from completing his second tour in Iraq when he died.
He was killed by small arms fire while entering a building in Sama Village in search of an Al Qaeda leader. He is survived by a daughter, Alyssa Gomez of Cypress, Texas, and his parents, Rosemary and James Brown of Cartwright, Okla.
His mother and father were too distraught to talk to reporters after his death, but you can practically trace his life through the tributes friends wrote in the online Guest Book:
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
The B-24J Liberators of the 492nd Bomb Group might as well have been flying over Germany in the summer of 1944 with giant bull's-eyes on their wings. That's because they were the first bombers to be unpainted and silver-colored to cut costs and reduce weight.
"The silver planes were like flying giant mirrors into enemy territory," historian Paul Arnett said. "The reflecting sunlight made it easier for the Luftwaffe to establish and maintain visual contact."
On one day alone, July 7, 1944, 12 bombers and 67 men were lost, including the McMurray Crew, which dropped out of formation after dropping its bombs on an aircraft factory in Bernberg, Germany, and was never seen or heard from again.
Captured records revealed the crippled bomber - swarmed by German fighters - had crashed in an area of eastern Germany that fell under Communist control until 1990.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Marine Lt. Col. William Hall of Seattle had two loves in his life: the Marine Corps and his family.
"He was very proud to be a Marine," his cousin told KING. "He ate, lived and breathed the Marine Corps. He was even excited about going to serve in Iraq."
Hall deployed to Iraq in February and sent his family and friends an e-mail in March.
"Please don't think that I am trying to paint the picture of this country as a rose garden, because it isn't," he wrote. "It's still a very dangerous place, and people are dying here every day. I am doing fine, I am safe, and will wrote again soon."
Hall died the next day of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in Fallujah. He was 38 years old.
"I can't tell you how fine this young man was - the finest husband, father, son, Marine, individual - warm, gracious, just our very best," a friend told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
The baby-faced soldier in the photo below went off to war in 1950 and never returned. This Friday Army Sgt. Virgil Phillips will be laid to rest in Goodwill Cemetery in his hometown of Loogootee, Ind., nearly 60 years after he was killed on a frozen battlefield of America's "forgotten war" in Korea.
"We want him to come home and be placed alongside his son," Phillips' grandson told the Columbus (Ind.) Republic.
In June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Phillips was 24 years old, married, and living in southern Indiana. Recalled to active duty, he shipped out in September for Korea.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
The Army's Old Guard buried one of its own this week. Staff Sgt. Christopher Hake, 26, of Enid, Okla., began his military career eight years ago with the elite ceremonial regiment, burying the dead and guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
He went on to serve in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division and met and married Kelli Short along the way. She gave birth 18 months ago to their son, Gage, and soon afterward Hake faced another deployment to Iraq.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
America paused, sighed and resumed its ways without even learning the names of the four soldiers whose deaths pushed the U.S. death toll in Iraq to 4,000.
But the grief has just begun for the families of Jose Rubio, Chris Hake, George Delgado and Andy Habsieger, all members of the Third Infantry Division who died of injuries suffered in a roadside bombing on Easter Sunday near Baghdad.
In Mission, Texas, just this side of the Mexican border, Jennifer Rubio read about the fatal blast in a local newspaper but had no idea her husband was among the dead until Army officials arrived at the couple's small apartment behind City Bride & Flower Shop.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery are always sad, but the burial of Army Staff Sgt. Collin Bowen was especially so.
Bowen, 38, died last month of burns suffered in Afghanistan and was buried Tuesday before a large group of mourners that included his wife and three young daughters.
Bowen was on the final day of his final mission near the Pakistani border on Jan. 2 when he was critically burned on his head and limbs by a roadside bomb. Evacuated to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, he survived for 10 weeks before succumbing on March 14.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Army casualty assistance officers fanned out across America last week to notify the families of 13 soldiers that their loved ones had been killed in Iraq.
Larry West was met at the front door of his Green Springs, W.Va., home and told of the death of his son, Army Staff Sgt. Laurent West. Victor Verdugo of Douglas, Ariz., learned his kid brother, Army Staff Sgt. Ernesto Cimarrusti, had also been killed.
"I just got out of work and I got a phone call from his wife," Verdugo told KVOA Tucson. "She told me the news that he had been killed. It's hard for us right now."
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
There's a very moving ceremony at the Pentagon honoring soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, but few people know about it, and for good reason.
About 10 times a year wounded soldiers are brought down a Pentagon corridor lined with their Army colleagues, who cheer and applaud and shake their hands as they pass by.
A friend sent me a column by Joseph Galloway of McClatchy Newspapers in which Lt. Col. Robert Bateman describes the ceremony.
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By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington
Army Sgt. Michael Minard, 26, of Grand Junction, Colo., was on his third tour in Iraq when tragedy struck.
"1 October we were out on a recon just a couple clicks north of Sadr City in Baghdad and on the way we got hit by a [roadside bomb]," he said. "It tore through our Stryker and stripped my legs apart."
Sgt. Minard lost both of his legs. He's been recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the past five months.
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