Boom3: Shawn E. Dressler, Army, Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Shawn E. Dressler, Army, Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Army, Sergeant
Based: Schweinfurt, Germany
1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: June 2, 2007
Baghdad, Iraq

Married

Gender: Male
Hometown: Santa Maria
High School: Santa Maria High (Santa Maria)
Burial: Oconee Hill Cemetery, Athens, Ga.

Years of hunting wild turkeys in the backwoods outside Santa Maria, Calif., helped turn Army Sgt. Shawn E. Dressler into a good marksman.

When he enlisted in 2002 and headed overseas for two tours in Iraq, Dressler sat in the gunner's seat every time his team rolled out.

During his last trip home in April, Dressler's father, Cecil, watched him expertly stalk and shoot a turkey.

"I nearly blew the hunt for him, but he was so steady," his father said. "He was a good boy and a good soldier."

Joshua D. Brown

Dressler, 22, was on patrol June 2 when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee in Baghdad. He died about 30 minutes later. Another soldier injured in the blast, Army Pfc. Joshua D. Brown, 26, of Tampa, Fla., died the next day.

A third-generation serviceman -- his grandfathers were in the Army and Marine Corps, and his dad was an engineer for the Navy -- Dressler learned to shoot with his father's boltaction shotgun when he was 10.

When he was a teenager, Dressler and his father scouted out the roughest parts of Los Padres National Forest and spent days hunting, hiking, fishing and camping.

Dressler joined the Army after graduating from Santa Maria High School and talked about pursuing a career in law enforcement once he got out. But after two tours in Iraq, he backed off the idea and considered becoming a forest ranger or game warden. He always tuned in to the History Channel and thought about going back to school to become a history teacher.

During the last few months, Dressler had a few close calls in Iraq, family members said. He once took a spray of bullets to the chest. His Kevlar vest saved him, but the force from the attack knocked him over, his father said. Still, he hardly ever let on to family members that he had been in danger.
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Dressler liked to kid his Army colleagues and tried to keep things light.
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On his trip home in April, Dressler and his father picked up an old routine and left the house at 4 a.m. to hunt turkeys.

The whole day, his father recalled, Dressler kept thanking him for raising him well -- as if he wanted to make sure he said it plenty of times in case something bad happened.

"Dad, thank you for taking me out over the years," he said.

"Son, that's what dads do," his father replied.

Dressler's wife, Amanda, believes he married her last year -- ahead of their plans -- to make sure she would be taken care of...

On the day he died, Dressler called his wife and told her that he would be heading out on patrol soon.

They had closed escrow on a three-bedroom house in Commerce, Ga., about a week earlier, and Amanda told him that she had finished painting the inside walls. She expected the carpet to be put in that day.

Dressler died 12 hours later. He was buried in Athens, Ga., his wife's hometown.

In addition to his wife and father, Dressler is survived by his mother, Tonya; a sister, Melissa, 20; and two stepbrothers, James, 36, and Daniel, 32.