Nathan Kalani Bouchard, Army, Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Nathan Kalani Bouchard, 24

Army, Sergeant
Based: Ft. Stewart, Ga.
3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: August 18, 2005
Samarra, Iraq
Single
Gender: Male
Hometown: Wildomar
High School: Elsinore High (Wildomar)
Burial: Riverside National Cemetery, Riverside

From the LA Times:

"I am a soldier in the United States Army, 21 years old, and [now in Iraq]," begins a letter to the editor published in the Riverside Press-Enterprise in April 2003, signed by a serviceman named Nathan Bouchard.

"You ask, 'Why, why are we in the Middle East? Why don't we leave Saddam alone? Why do we even get involved?'.... It is because somebody has to.... Because, as you know, problems do not go away just by closing your eyes or turning your back or burying your head in the sand.

"This freedom we have was not free."

Bouchard, 24, died in Samarra, Iraq, on Aug. 18 when a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee.

Raised in Wildomar, in Riverside County, Bouchard was on a second and extended tour of duty in Iraq. He enlisted in the Army in May 2002, spurred by patriotic sentiments after the 2001 terrorist attacks, his parents said.

"Nathan believed in what he was doing. He wrote, and he told us about the good things that they were doing in Iraq," said Alida Bouchard, his mother, from the family's new home in Cottonwood, Ariz.

Bouchard's father, John, a longtime Navy serviceman, said his son spoke to them vividly about escorting his commanding officer into Iraqi towns and villages, about talking to community leaders and fulfilling their requests for sanitation pickups and new schools.

"He enjoyed kids especially," John Bouchard said. "And he enjoyed being over there in the land that was of the Bible -- Samarra -- seeing it firsthand."

Nathan Bouchard was born in 1981 in Dallas. He graduated from Lake Elsinore High School in 1999 and was a starting defensive lineman in his senior year.

He surfed, hiked and went mountain biking. Often, Bouchard hiked "in slippers," which were more comfortable for him, said his father, chuckling.

Bouchard, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division in Ft. Stewart, Ga., also was a devout Christian. He was an active member of The Fold, a Christian youth group in Wildomar. He attended Cornerstone Community Church with his family.

Bouchard last saw his parents and siblings in May, when he visited Cottonwood before returning to Iraq. His younger brother, Sean, 21, also is in the Army and was home when the family received news of Nathan's death.

A funeral service is scheduled for Saturday at Cornerstone Community Church in Wildomar. The Bouchards said they have received messages of support and condolences from as far away as South Africa, many prompted by their son's letter to the editor.


They said they would always remember Nathan as a positive-thinking, energetic man who did anything he could for friends and family when he saw them unhappy. Bouchard's faith, his parents said, continues to give them strength.


"Nathan was a Christian first and a soldier second," John Bouchard said. "That's our reassurance -- our peace that we have -- that he was where God wanted him to be."

Read more about Army Sergeant Nathan Kalani Bouchard in 

Valley News, 

Military Times,

and visit Nathan K. Bouchard's Guest Book.

++++++++++++++++++++

Also killed were:

- Staff Sgt. Jeremy W. Doyle, 24, of Chesterton, Md.

- Spc. Ray M. Fuhrmann, II, 28, of Novato, Calif.

- Pfc. Timothy J. Seamans, 20, of Jacksonville, Fla.

Richard A. Soukenka, Army, Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Richard A. Soukenka, 30

Army, Sergeant
Based: Ft. Drum, N.Y.
2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry)
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: February 27, 2007
Baghdad (southwest of), Iraq
Married
Gender: Male
Hometown: Oceanside

High School: Oceanside High (Oceanside)

Soukenka spent a part of his childhood homeless. He was eventually adopted by a man who volunteered at an Oceanside soup kitchen near where the child and his mother were living along a riverbed.
...
Soukenka was among three soldiers killed Feb. 27 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Baghdad. They were all assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) at Ft. Drum, N.Y.
...
Also killed in the incident were Cpl. Lorne E. Henry, Jr., 21, of Niagara Falls, N.Y.; and Spc. Jonathan D. Cadavero, 24, of Takoma Park, Md.

Read the entire LA Times article about Army Sergeant Richard A. Soukenka here, find more at Freedom Remembered and at the Iraq Page and visit Sergeant Soukenka's Guest Book.

Sergeant Soukenka previously remembered on Boom3.

Dwight J. Morgan, Marines, Staff Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Dwight J. Morgan, 24

Marines, Staff Sergeant 
Based:
Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif. 

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361 (HMH-361), the "Flying Tigers" of Marine Aircraft Group 16 
Supporting: Operation Enduring Freedom 

Died: January 19, 2002 

Bagram, Afghanistan 

Married, 1 child 
Gender: Male 

Hometown: Mendocino 

High School: Willits High (Willits)

Two Marines killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan were eulogized Wednesday as young men of honor and courage who "made the world a safer place" by volunteering to serve in the war against terrorism.

"Their country called in November, and they volunteered," Lt. Col. David L. Spasojevich said of Staff Sgt. Walter F. Cohee III and Staff Sgt. Dwight J. Morgan. "They were chosen because they were the best. They were Marines' Marines."

Cohee, 26, of Mardela Springs, Md., and Morgan, 24, of Willits in Northern California, were killed in the Jan. 19 crash of a CH-53E Super Stallion in the snowy mountains near Kabul while on a resupply mission. Five members of the crew were injured....

The two crashes give Miramar the grisly distinction of being the U.S. military base that has suffered the most war zone fatalities in the war on terrorism.

Navy chaplain Lt. George R. Bradshaw said Morgan's 4-year-old son, Alex, can be proud that "the world is safer because his father had the courage to confront evil in a land faraway."


Morgan's widow, Teresa, is expecting the couple's second child.


Cohee and his fiancee, Vanessa Gerritsen, a graduate student at UC San Diego, planned to be married. Using military e-mail, he had asked her sister and parents for their blessing for the marriage.


"When I found out [Cohee] had died, I felt I died too," a tearful Gerritsen told reporters after the memorial. "I have no idea what my future holds or how I'm going to go on without him. He was the love of my life and always will be."

Cohee and Morgan were part of heavy helicopter Squadron 361, known as the Flying Tigers. Both had completed a deployment in the Middle East when the U.S. sent forces to Afghanistan to rout the Taliban government and Al Qaeda terrorist network.

"In disbelief, anger, grief and sorrow, we grasp for memories," said Spasojevich, the squadron's commanding officer. "They will be in our hearts forever."

Read the entire LA Times article about Staff Sgt. Dwight J. Morgan and Staff Sgt. Walter F. Cohee III here. Do visit Sergeant Morgan's Fallen Heroes Memorial.

Kirk J. Bosselmann, Marines, Corporal -- Rest In Peace

Kirk J. Bosselmann, 21

Marines, Corporal
Based: Camp Lejeune, N.C.
1st Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: November 27, 2004
Fallouja, Iraq
Single
Gender: Male
Hometown: Napa
High School: Poolesville High School (Poolesville, Md.)
Foreign Country of Birth: Canada
Burial: Cremated

There was no such thing as half speed for Marine Cpl. Kirk J. Bosselmann.

After he graduated in 2001 from Poolesville High School in Maryland, he traveled by train to California to jump out of airplanes to fight fires. And after joining the Marine Corps, he worked his way onto a sniper squadron, drawing on a childhood spent hunting game in the deep woods of Maryland's rural Montgomery County.

Quiet and confident, the former lacrosse player also learned to surf and ride a rodeo bull somewhere along the line.


"When dealing with him, you learned to not let anything surprise you," said Montgomery County firefighter Joe Brown, a longtime friend of the 21-year-old Marine, who was killed in combat Nov. 27 while fighting insurgents near the Iraqi town of Fallouja.

Read the entire LA Times article about Marine Corporal Kirk J. Bosselmann here; find a message from his mother here and a memory of a friend here.