SFC Calvin B. Harrison. 7th Special Forces Group. KIA in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan on September 29, 2010.
SSG Kyle R. Warren. 3rd Special Forces Group. KIA in Tsagay, Afghanistan on July 29, 2010.
CPT Jason E. Holbrook. 3rd Special Forces Group. KIA in Tsagay, Afghanistan on July 29, 2010.
SGT Andrew J. Creighton. 1st Special Forces Group. KIA in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan on July 4, 2010.
MSG Mark W. Coleman. 1st Special Forces Group. KIA in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on May 2, 2010.
CPT David J. Thompson. 3rd Special Forces Group. KIA in Wardak Province, Afghanistan on January 29, 2010.
SSG Matthew Pucino. 20th Special Forces Group. KIA in Pashay Kala, Afghanistan on November 23, 2009.
SFC David E. Metzger. 7th Special Forces Group. Died in helicopter crash in Badghis Province, western Afghanistan on October 26, 2009.
SSG Keith R. Bishop. 7th Special Forces Group. Died in helicopter crash in Badghis Province, western Afghanistan on October 26, 2009.
SFC Christopher D. Shaw. 1st Special Forces Group, KIA on Jolo Island, Philippines on September 29, 2009.
SSG Jack M. Martin. 1st Special Forces Group, KIA on Jolo Island, Philippines on September 29, 2009.
SFC Bradley S. Bohle. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on September 16, 2009.
SFC Shawn P. McCloskey. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on September 16, 2009.
SSG Joshua M. Mills. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on September 16, 2009.
SFC Duane A. Thornsbury. 10th Special Forces Group. Died in Iraq on September 12, 2009.
SSG Andrew T. Lobosco. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 22, 2009.
SFC William B. Woods. 20th Special Forces Group, died in Landstuhl, Germany on August 16, 2009 from wounds received in Afghanistan.
CPT John Tinsley. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 12, 2009.
SFC Alejandro Granado. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 2, 2009.
SFC Severin Summers. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 2, 2009.
CPT Ronald Luce. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 2, 2009.
CW2 Douglas M. Vose. 10th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on July 29, 2009.
MSG David L. Hurt. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on February 20, 2009.
SSG Marc J. Small. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on February 13, 2009.
SSG Joshua R. Townsend. 7th Special Forces Group, died in Afghanistan on January 16, 2009.
SGT Nicholas A. Casey. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on October 27, 2008.
CPT Richard G. Cliff, Jr. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on September 29, 2008.
SFC Jamie S. Nicholas. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on September 29, 2008.
MSG Mitchell W. Young. 7th Special Forces Group, died in Afghanistan on July 13, 2008.
SFC Jeffrey M. Rada Morales. 7th Special Forces Group, died in Afghanistan on June 29, 2008.
MSG Shawn E. Simmons. 7th Special Forces Group, died in Afghanistan on June 29, 2008.
SGT James M. Treber. 7th Special Forces Group, died in Afghanistan on June 27, 2008.
SFC David Nunez. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on May 29, 2008.
SSG William R. Neil, Jr. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on March 22, 2008.
SSG Robert J. Miller. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on January 25, 2008.
SSG Patrick F. Kutschbach. 10th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on November 10, 2007.
MAJ Jeff Calero. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on October 29, 2007.
SSG Jesse G. Clowers, Jr. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 12, 2007.
SFC Jeffrey D. Kettle. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 12, 2007.
SFC Sean K. Mitchell. 10th Special Forces Group, died from injuries sustained while deployed on OEF TS in Africa on July 7, 2007.
MSG Arthur L. Lilley. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on June 15, 2007.
SSG Joshua R. Whitaker. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on May 15, 2007.
SGM Bradly D. Conner. 1st Special Forces Group, KIA near Al-Hillah, Iraq on May 9, 2007.
SSG Michael D. Thomas. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA south of Shindand, Herat Province, Afghanistan.
SGT Marco L. Miller. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Taji, Iraq on December 5, 2006.
SGT Dustin M. Adkins. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Haditha, Iraq on December 3, 2006.
SFC Tung M. Nguyen. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Baghdad, Iraq on November 14, 2006.
SFC William R. Brown. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Sperwan-Gar, Afghanistan on November 6, 2007.
SSG Kyu H. Chay. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan on October 28, 2006.
SGT Daniel W. Winegart. 5th Special Forces, KIA in Baghdad, Iraq on October 17, 2006.
CW2 Scott W. Dyer. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Banditemur, Afghanistan on October 11, 2006.
SSG Eric Caban. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in southern Afghanistan on July 19, 2006.
MSG Thomas D. Maholic. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA near Ghecko, Afghanistan on June 24, 2006.
SFC Daniel B. Crabtree. 19th Special Forces Group, KIA in Al Kut, Iraq in June 8, 2006.
SSG Christian Longsworth. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan on May 19, 2006.
SFC Christopher L. Robinson. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on March 25, 2006.
MSG Emigdio E. Elizarraras. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on February 28, 2006.
SFC Chad A. Gonsalves. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on February 13, 2006.
SSG Edwin H. Dazachacon. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on February 13, 2006.
SGT Alberto D. Montrond. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on February 13, 2006.
SFC Lance Cornett. U.S. Army Special Operations Command, KIA in Iraq on February 3, 2006.
SSG Ayman A. Taha. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on December 30, 2005.
MSG Joseph J. Andres. U.S. Army Special Operations Command, KIA on December 24, 2005.
MSG Anthony Yost. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on November 19, 2005.
SFC James Ochsner. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on November 15, 2005.
SSG Matthew Kimmell. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on October 11, 2005.
SSG Gary Harper. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on October 9, 2005.
MAJ Kenneth Webb. 19th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq in September 19, 2005. (Blackwater).
CW2 David R. Shephard. 19th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq September 19, 2005. (Blackwater).
CPT Jeremy Chandler. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 11, 2005.
SSG Christopher Falkel. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 8, 2005.
SFC Brett Walden. 5th Special Forces Group, killed in Iraq on August 5, 2005.
SGT Jason Palmerton. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on July 23, 2005.
SFC Victor Cervantes. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on June 10, 2005.
SSG Christopher Piper. 7th Special Forces Group, WIA in Afghanistan on June 3, 2005 and died on June 16, 2005.
SSG Leroy Alexander. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on June 3, 2005.
CPT Charles Robinson. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on June 3, 2005.
SGT Thomas Jaichner. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on May 10, 2005. (Blackwater).
SFC Allen C. Johnson. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on April 26, 2005.
SGT Steven McGovern. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on April 21, 2005. (Blackwater).
SFC James Hunt. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on April 20, 2005. (Edinburgh Risk and Security Management).
SGT Jeremy R. Wright. 1st Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on January 3, 2005.
SFC Pedro A. Munoz. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on January 2, 2005.
SSG Steve Osborne. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on October 14, 2004. (DynCorp).
SFC Eric Miner. 19th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on October 14, 2004. (DynCorp).
SSG Robert Goodwin. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on September 20, 2004.
SSG Tony B. Olaes. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on September 20, 2004.
SSG Aaron N. Holleyman. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on August 30, 2004.
CPT Michael Yuri Tarlavsky. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on August 12, 2004.
SSG Paul C. Mardis. 5th Special Forces Group, WIA in Iraq on May 20, 2004 and died on July 15, 2004.
MAJ Paul R. Syverson III. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on June 16, 2004.
CPT Daniel W. Eggers. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on May 29, 2004.
SFC Robert J. Mogensen. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on May 29, 2004.
CWO Bruce E. Price. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on May 15, 2004.
SGM Michael B. Stack. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on April 11, 2004.
MSG Richard L. Ferguson. 10th Special Forces Group, KIA in Iraq on March 30, 2004.
SGT "Doc" Roy Wood. 20th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on January 9, 2004.
SFC Mitchell A. Lane. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on August 29, 2003.
SSG Orlando Morales. 7th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on March 29, 2003.
SFC Mark Jackson. 1st Special Forces Group, KIA in Philippines on October 2, 2002.
SFC Peter P. Tycz II. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on June 12, 2002.
SGT Gene Arden Vance, Jr. 19th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on May 19, 2002.
SFC Daniel A. Romero. 19th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on April 15, 2002.
CWO Stanley L. Harriman. 3rd Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on March 2, 2002.
SFC Nathan R. Chapman. 1st Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on January 4, 2002.
MSG Jefferson D. Davis. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on December 5, 2001.
SFC Daniel H. Petithory. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on December 5, 2001.
SSG Brian C. Prosser. 5th Special Forces Group, KIA in Afghanistan on December 5, 2001.
CW2 (Rtd) Ronald Bucca. 11th Special Forces Group, KIA in New York on September 11, 2001. New York City Fireman.
Tracy Press -- American bullets may have taken the life of South Vietnamese refugee and Green Beret Tung Nguyen — Tracy’s sixth casualty in the Iraq war.
Nguyen, 38, was a Tracy High School graduate who died fighting for the U.S. in Baghdad on Nov. 14, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday.
Nguyen arrived by boat with aunts and uncles before moving to Tracy as a 15-year-old and settling in as a foster child with the Cracraft family in a mobile home off MacArthur Drive.
He left Tracy for Schofield Barracks in Hawaii to serve as an infantryman after he finished high school in 1986.
Foster relatives remembered Nguyen on Friday as a well-spoken, quiet kid who was reluctant to talk about his Vietnamese past.
“He was like a Rambo — he could do anything, and he thought he was invincible,” said Tracy’s Jim Cracraft, Nguyen’s foster brother and classmate. “He was a good guy. He liked to challenge things.”
Nguyen fought for many years to bring his father, Nguyen Van Tuan, and mother, Phan Cong Duc, to the U.S., Cracraft said.
“He did everything and anything he could — that was his goal, to bring them over, and he succeeded,” he said. Nguyen’s parents moved to Alameda, 50 miles west of Tracy, in the 1990s.
“He supported his family,” his mother said in an interview Friday with ABC News. “He loved his father. He loved me and his father.”
Nguyen earned a green beret and became a Special Forces soldier in 1993, when he joined the Airborne 1st Special Forces Group in Ft. Lewis, Wash.
The Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Iraq Campaign Medal and Combat Infantryman Badge were added to his long list of awards and decorations after he died.
A military statement said Nguyen appeared to have died after being hit by friendly fire while fighting in Baghdad. The U.S. Army announced that it is investigating the death.
“He loved the Army — he died doing what he loved,” his foster mother, Karen Cracraft, said from the home where she cared for Nguyen. “(He loved) the action and fighting for the country, even though it wasn’t his country.
“When he was here the last time (in 2004), he said that he was going to stay in the states and train for a while,” she said, adding that Nguyen, a naturalized U.S. citizen, visited her every couple of years.
Nguyen trained soldiers at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School from 2003 through February 2006, when he was sent to Iraq with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), according to an Army press release.
Many who knew Nguyen said that he loved guns, and the Army statement said he had won two small arms shooting competitions earlier this year.
Julie Condon, who had lived next door to him while he was in high school, remembered Nguyen as a fit and healthy youngster who “could always put a smile on your face.”
Condon said she was rescued by Nguyen from the Stanislaus River when the pair was in high school when her legs became numb after misjudging a cliff dive in Caswell Memorial State Park, near Ripon.
“It was automatic — he didn’t even think about it. He was in the water swimming toward her before we realized what had happened,” said Condon’s mother, Nancy Perata. “He was one of the most responsible teenagers I ever knew.”
Nguyen’s junior-year U.S. history teacher said he was surprised to hear that his student had become a career soldier.
“My impression was that he was a bright kid that would go onto college and major in something,” John Treantos said Friday. “He was the kind of kid that if he wanted to become a teacher, a lawyer or whatever, then he would have been good at it.
“He asked questions, and that’s what makes a student. He’s not what I refer to as ‘goats’ — these people who drift into class and out of class.”
Treantos, still a teacher at Tracy High School, is also president of the Tracy War Memorial Association.
“This is the one thing I’ve been dreading since January, when we lost the fifth guy,” he said. “Now we’ve got six names we’re going to have to put up (on the war memorial).”
Brent Ives, Tracy councilman and mayor-elect, was distressed to hear Tracy had lost its sixth serviceman in Iraq.
“I don’t know why we’re getting an inordinate amount of the loss here, but it certainly is disturbing,” he said.
Military Moms of Tracy estimates there are 45 people from Tracy serving in Iraq.
The 80,000-person city has lost one serviceman fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom for every 13,000 people living here. With 2,683 combat deaths, the national rate is one lost serviceman for every 105,000 people.
Nguyen is survived by his wife, Marcia, of Raeford, N.C. He grew up with two foster-brothers and one foster-sister in Tracy, along with his foster mother and late step-father.
==Another news story==
Los Angeles Times -- After spending five months in Iraq, Tung Nguyen called his mother to let her know that he was finally coming home, in December.
“He said he was very happy to go home and would come over to visit me,” said his mother, Duc Phan, 61, of Alameda, Calif.
But on Nov. 14, two days after the call, Nguyen was killed when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Baghdad. He was 38.
A decorated, 20-year Army veteran, Nguyen was a senior detachment communications sergeant assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group at Ft. Bragg, N.C.
His love for the military began as a youngster in Vietnam.
Sgt. 1st Class Nguyen was always interested in hearing war stories from family members, many of whom were South Vietnamese soldiers and officers who fought communist forces in 1975 during the Vietnam War.
When he was 11, his mother put Nguyen, her second-oldest son, on a rickety boat with his brother and an aunt to seek a better life in America.
While he stayed at a refugee camp in Thailand, he wrote home to his mother to let her know that he had survived the arduous escape, in which they were robbed by Thai pirates. On another occasion, Nguyen had to help load and fire guns to fend them off.
He was 12 when he arrived in California, and lived in Tracy with his American foster parents, Jim and Karen Cracraft.
After he graduated from Tracy High School, he immediately joined the Army.
“I was so afraid for him, but he loved the military,” said Phan, who came to the United States in 1996. “He never told me where he went, especially the dangerous places, because he didn’t want me to worry.”
During his two decades of service, Nguyen rose through the ranks and was honored with numerous awards.
He became a Special Forces soldier in 1992 and earned the coveted Green Beret when he graduated from the course the following year.
In 2003, he was selected to teach at the Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Ft. Bragg and remained there until he was sent to Iraq this year, his first tour there.
Among his awards were two Meritorious Service Medals, two Army Commendation Medals and four Army Achievement Medals.
He also was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Iraq Campaign Medal and Combat Infantryman Badge.
Nguyen loved to shoot guns. When his mother visited him in North Carolina, he would take her to shooting ranges.
“He could do anything,” she said. “He never gave up.”
Because of a weak right eye from a previous shooting injury, Nguyen learned to aim with his left eye, she said.
In Army competitions, he won the 2006 small-arms championship sniper class competition and the 2006 joint special operations command small-arms championship pistol class competition.
Aside from his military achievements, Nguyen also was proud that he was able to travel and explore the world through his service, from Hawaii to Washington to Germany.
And, in 1996, he sponsored his parents’ immigration to the United States, in time to attend his wedding the following year.
“He lived a very fulfilling life and he died doing what he loved,” Phan said.
She said that during their last phone conversation, Nguyen “thanked me for letting him go to America.”
In addition to his mother, Nguyen is survived by his father, Tuan Nguyen; his wife, Marcia, of Raeford, N.C.; and five brothers.
==Another news story==
New York Sun (The Price of Freeing the Oppressed) -- On late Friday afternoon, with President Bush arriving in Hanoi for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, news broke of a casualty in Iraq. His name was Tung Nguyen, 38, a sergeant first class, and a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
Nguyen had died in a firefight in Baghdad on Tuesday. The Army is investigating the events of Nguyen's death, an inquiry that will look into the possibility of friendly fire. There have been 2,864 fighting men and women killed in Iraq, and a story lies behind each and every one of them. But the arc of Nguyen's life, which began in Vietnam and ended in Iraq, says as much about sacrifice and what it means to be American as any of them.
He was born the year of the Tet Offensive, the great turning point in Vietnam on two fronts: It was the year the Viet Cong expended the bulk of its resources turning the conflict from an insurgency to a war more directly executed by the North Vietnamese army. It also marked the moment when the American public, surprised by the enemy offensive on Saigon, and elsewhere throughout the country, began to lose heart in the struggle.
Eight months before Nguyen's birth, in October, Special Forces Company D, headquartered in his hometown of Cantho, fought off an attack. The elite soldiers, the Green Berets, who defended Cantho did so under the Special Forces motto "de oppresso liber," which is a fancy Latin phrase meaning "to free the oppressed."
The Special Forces were among the first Americans to fight and die in Vietnam. President Kennedy believed that these unconventional troops could be an important tool in the fight against communism. He visited the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1961, an institution that took Kennedy's name after his assassination two years later.
It was a member of the Special Forces, Paul Campbell, a sergeant like Nguyen, who was the first American to hike into the Central Highlands in 1961 and provide medical treatment to the mountain people, the Montagnards. Special Force A-Teams followed suit in the years to come, going into camps throughout Vietnam, shoring up defenses, leading groups of irregular fighters, and dispensing medical care.
The Americans left Vietnam in 1975 and several years thereafter so did Nguyen. The details are still sketchy. Following the fall of Saigon, Nguyen fled Vietnam with relatives, leaving his parents behind. This was the era of the Vietnamese boat people, when thousands of opponents of the communist regime and those seeking a better life made their way to sometimes makeshift boats and left the country. Nguyen ended up in Tracy, Calif., outside of Modesto. He struggled to bring his parents to America and graduated from Tracy High School in 1986.
He was first an infantryman, then a paratrooper, serving in the 101st Airborne Division, and, finally, a Green Beret. A crack shot, foster brother Jim Cracraft told the Modesto Bee, Nguyen's ambition was to join the military. Recognized as a master marksman, Nguyen became an instructor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center in 2003 and, later, shipped out to Iraq.
Much more can probably be learned about Nguyen's service in Iraq. Right now details are scarce. The Army press release states that Nguyen was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Bronze Star, and the Combat Infantryman Badge, which denotes action under fire and combat with the enemy.
Forty years ago, another Special Forces sergeant, Barry Sadler, had a number one hit song with "The Ballad of the Green Berets." In his fifth verse, Sadler sang "Back at home a young wife waits, Her Green Beret has met his fate, He has died for those oppressed." Like the soldier in "The Ballad," Nguyen had a wife at home, Marcia. She will mourn Nguyen at a private funeral at Fort Bragg tomorrow.
Nguyen, in turn, will not be forgotten. Members of Special Forces alumni chapters have a tradition of paying tribute to their fallen brothers for years to come. In Las Vegas, for example, the members of Chapter 51 gather every month. They commence each meeting reciting the names of those Special Forces soldiers killed that month. The list for November begins with Sergeant First Class William Everheart, killed in 1963, and contains 74 other names, most of them killed in the land of Nguyen's birth.
No matter what happens with troop levels in Iraq in the coming months, members of the U.S. Army Special Forces will surely be putting themselves in harm's way throughout the world in the years to come. They will do so selflessly, in the name of the Special Forces motto "de oppresso liber," to free the oppressed.
==Another news story==
Tung M. Nguyen | |||||||
| |||||||
SFC Tung M. Nguyen Senior A Detachment Communications Sergeant Company B, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) Fort Bragg, N.C. 38 from Cantho, Vietnam, raised in Tracy, California and Resident of Raeford, North Carolina KIA 14 November 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq,
His wife, Marcia of Raeford, North Carolina and his Parents, Nguyen Van Tuan and Phan Cong Duc of Alameda, California, survive him. Sgt. 1st Class Nguyen was born in Cantho, Vietnam, became a U.S. citizen, and was raised in Tracy, Calif. He was assigned to Company B,2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, N.C. and deployed to Baghdad, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, died of a gunshot wound during Combat Operations Nov. 14 in Baghdad, Iraq.He entered military service in July, 1986 with the 4th Bn., 22d Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division (Light) at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, as an infantryman. After three years of service, he left active duty and served with the Army Reserve in Sacramento, Calif. In 1991, he reentered active duty, and served with the 1st Bn., 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), at Fort Campbell, Ky., for one year before volunteering for Special Forces training. He began his journey to become a Special Forces Soldier in 1992 and earned the coveted Green Beret when he graduated from the course in 1993. He was assigned to 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Lewis, Wash., that year and served in all three combat battalions during his tenure there, first as a communications sergeant and then as an intelligence sergeant. In 2003, he was chosen to become an instructor at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School here. He served in both instructor and operations positions preparing Special Forces Soldiers for the rigors of combat until February 2006 when he was assigned to 3rd SFG, where he served until his death. His military education also includes the Special Operations and Target Interdiction Course, Special Forces Advanced Reconnaissance, Target Analysis and Exploitation Techniques Course, Warrior Leaders Course, Nuclear Hazards Training Course, Basic Airborne Course, Air Assault Course, Basic and Anti-Terrorism Instructor Courses, Basic and Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Courses and Combat Lifesaver Course. He also was the winner of the 2006 Small Arms Championship Sniper Class competition, and the 2006 Joint Special Operations Command Small Arms Championship Pistol Class competition. |
Tracy Press -- American bullets may have taken the life of South Vietnamese refugee and Green Beret Tung Nguyen — Tracy’s sixth casualty in the Iraq war.
Nguyen, 38, was a Tracy High School graduate who died fighting for the U.S. in Baghdad on Nov. 14, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday.
Nguyen arrived by boat with aunts and uncles before moving to Tracy as a 15-year-old and settling in as a foster child with the Cracraft family in a mobile home off MacArthur Drive.
He left Tracy for Schofield Barracks in Hawaii to serve as an infantryman after he finished high school in 1986.
Foster relatives remembered Nguyen on Friday as a well-spoken, quiet kid who was reluctant to talk about his Vietnamese past.
“He was like a Rambo — he could do anything, and he thought he was invincible,” said Tracy’s Jim Cracraft, Nguyen’s foster brother and classmate. “He was a good guy. He liked to challenge things.”
Nguyen fought for many years to bring his father, Nguyen Van Tuan, and mother, Phan Cong Duc, to the U.S., Cracraft said.
“He did everything and anything he could — that was his goal, to bring them over, and he succeeded,” he said. Nguyen’s parents moved to Alameda, 50 miles west of Tracy, in the 1990s.
“He supported his family,” his mother said in an interview Friday with ABC News. “He loved his father. He loved me and his father.”
Nguyen earned a green beret and became a Special Forces soldier in 1993, when he joined the Airborne 1st Special Forces Group in Ft. Lewis, Wash.
The Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Iraq Campaign Medal and Combat Infantryman Badge were added to his long list of awards and decorations after he died.
A military statement said Nguyen appeared to have died after being hit by friendly fire while fighting in Baghdad. The U.S. Army announced that it is investigating the death.
“He loved the Army — he died doing what he loved,” his foster mother, Karen Cracraft, said from the home where she cared for Nguyen. “(He loved) the action and fighting for the country, even though it wasn’t his country.
“When he was here the last time (in 2004), he said that he was going to stay in the states and train for a while,” she said, adding that Nguyen, a naturalized U.S. citizen, visited her every couple of years.
Nguyen trained soldiers at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School from 2003 through February 2006, when he was sent to Iraq with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), according to an Army press release.
Many who knew Nguyen said that he loved guns, and the Army statement said he had won two small arms shooting competitions earlier this year.
Julie Condon, who had lived next door to him while he was in high school, remembered Nguyen as a fit and healthy youngster who “could always put a smile on your face.”
Condon said she was rescued by Nguyen from the Stanislaus River when the pair was in high school when her legs became numb after misjudging a cliff dive in Caswell Memorial State Park, near Ripon.
“It was automatic — he didn’t even think about it. He was in the water swimming toward her before we realized what had happened,” said Condon’s mother, Nancy Perata. “He was one of the most responsible teenagers I ever knew.”
Nguyen’s junior-year U.S. history teacher said he was surprised to hear that his student had become a career soldier.
“My impression was that he was a bright kid that would go onto college and major in something,” John Treantos said Friday. “He was the kind of kid that if he wanted to become a teacher, a lawyer or whatever, then he would have been good at it.
“He asked questions, and that’s what makes a student. He’s not what I refer to as ‘goats’ — these people who drift into class and out of class.”
Treantos, still a teacher at Tracy High School, is also president of the Tracy War Memorial Association.
“This is the one thing I’ve been dreading since January, when we lost the fifth guy,” he said. “Now we’ve got six names we’re going to have to put up (on the war memorial).”
Brent Ives, Tracy councilman and mayor-elect, was distressed to hear Tracy had lost its sixth serviceman in Iraq.
“I don’t know why we’re getting an inordinate amount of the loss here, but it certainly is disturbing,” he said.
Military Moms of Tracy estimates there are 45 people from Tracy serving in Iraq.
The 80,000-person city has lost one serviceman fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom for every 13,000 people living here. With 2,683 combat deaths, the national rate is one lost serviceman for every 105,000 people.
Nguyen is survived by his wife, Marcia, of Raeford, N.C. He grew up with two foster-brothers and one foster-sister in Tracy, along with his foster mother and late step-father.
==Another news story==
Los Angeles Times -- After spending five months in Iraq, Tung Nguyen called his mother to let her know that he was finally coming home, in December.
“He said he was very happy to go home and would come over to visit me,” said his mother, Duc Phan, 61, of Alameda, Calif.
But on Nov. 14, two days after the call, Nguyen was killed when his unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Baghdad. He was 38.
A decorated, 20-year Army veteran, Nguyen was a senior detachment communications sergeant assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group at Ft. Bragg, N.C.
His love for the military began as a youngster in Vietnam.
Sgt. 1st Class Nguyen was always interested in hearing war stories from family members, many of whom were South Vietnamese soldiers and officers who fought communist forces in 1975 during the Vietnam War.
When he was 11, his mother put Nguyen, her second-oldest son, on a rickety boat with his brother and an aunt to seek a better life in America.
While he stayed at a refugee camp in Thailand, he wrote home to his mother to let her know that he had survived the arduous escape, in which they were robbed by Thai pirates. On another occasion, Nguyen had to help load and fire guns to fend them off.
He was 12 when he arrived in California, and lived in Tracy with his American foster parents, Jim and Karen Cracraft.
After he graduated from Tracy High School, he immediately joined the Army.
“I was so afraid for him, but he loved the military,” said Phan, who came to the United States in 1996. “He never told me where he went, especially the dangerous places, because he didn’t want me to worry.”
During his two decades of service, Nguyen rose through the ranks and was honored with numerous awards.
He became a Special Forces soldier in 1992 and earned the coveted Green Beret when he graduated from the course the following year.
In 2003, he was selected to teach at the Army’s John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Ft. Bragg and remained there until he was sent to Iraq this year, his first tour there.
Among his awards were two Meritorious Service Medals, two Army Commendation Medals and four Army Achievement Medals.
He also was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Iraq Campaign Medal and Combat Infantryman Badge.
Nguyen loved to shoot guns. When his mother visited him in North Carolina, he would take her to shooting ranges.
“He could do anything,” she said. “He never gave up.”
Because of a weak right eye from a previous shooting injury, Nguyen learned to aim with his left eye, she said.
In Army competitions, he won the 2006 small-arms championship sniper class competition and the 2006 joint special operations command small-arms championship pistol class competition.
Aside from his military achievements, Nguyen also was proud that he was able to travel and explore the world through his service, from Hawaii to Washington to Germany.
And, in 1996, he sponsored his parents’ immigration to the United States, in time to attend his wedding the following year.
“He lived a very fulfilling life and he died doing what he loved,” Phan said.
She said that during their last phone conversation, Nguyen “thanked me for letting him go to America.”
In addition to his mother, Nguyen is survived by his father, Tuan Nguyen; his wife, Marcia, of Raeford, N.C.; and five brothers.
==Another news story==
New York Sun (The Price of Freeing the Oppressed) -- On late Friday afternoon, with President Bush arriving in Hanoi for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, news broke of a casualty in Iraq. His name was Tung Nguyen, 38, a sergeant first class, and a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
Nguyen had died in a firefight in Baghdad on Tuesday. The Army is investigating the events of Nguyen's death, an inquiry that will look into the possibility of friendly fire. There have been 2,864 fighting men and women killed in Iraq, and a story lies behind each and every one of them. But the arc of Nguyen's life, which began in Vietnam and ended in Iraq, says as much about sacrifice and what it means to be American as any of them.
He was born the year of the Tet Offensive, the great turning point in Vietnam on two fronts: It was the year the Viet Cong expended the bulk of its resources turning the conflict from an insurgency to a war more directly executed by the North Vietnamese army. It also marked the moment when the American public, surprised by the enemy offensive on Saigon, and elsewhere throughout the country, began to lose heart in the struggle.
Eight months before Nguyen's birth, in October, Special Forces Company D, headquartered in his hometown of Cantho, fought off an attack. The elite soldiers, the Green Berets, who defended Cantho did so under the Special Forces motto "de oppresso liber," which is a fancy Latin phrase meaning "to free the oppressed."
The Special Forces were among the first Americans to fight and die in Vietnam. President Kennedy believed that these unconventional troops could be an important tool in the fight against communism. He visited the Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 1961, an institution that took Kennedy's name after his assassination two years later.
It was a member of the Special Forces, Paul Campbell, a sergeant like Nguyen, who was the first American to hike into the Central Highlands in 1961 and provide medical treatment to the mountain people, the Montagnards. Special Force A-Teams followed suit in the years to come, going into camps throughout Vietnam, shoring up defenses, leading groups of irregular fighters, and dispensing medical care.
The Americans left Vietnam in 1975 and several years thereafter so did Nguyen. The details are still sketchy. Following the fall of Saigon, Nguyen fled Vietnam with relatives, leaving his parents behind. This was the era of the Vietnamese boat people, when thousands of opponents of the communist regime and those seeking a better life made their way to sometimes makeshift boats and left the country. Nguyen ended up in Tracy, Calif., outside of Modesto. He struggled to bring his parents to America and graduated from Tracy High School in 1986.
He was first an infantryman, then a paratrooper, serving in the 101st Airborne Division, and, finally, a Green Beret. A crack shot, foster brother Jim Cracraft told the Modesto Bee, Nguyen's ambition was to join the military. Recognized as a master marksman, Nguyen became an instructor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center in 2003 and, later, shipped out to Iraq.
Much more can probably be learned about Nguyen's service in Iraq. Right now details are scarce. The Army press release states that Nguyen was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Bronze Star, and the Combat Infantryman Badge, which denotes action under fire and combat with the enemy.
Forty years ago, another Special Forces sergeant, Barry Sadler, had a number one hit song with "The Ballad of the Green Berets." In his fifth verse, Sadler sang "Back at home a young wife waits, Her Green Beret has met his fate, He has died for those oppressed." Like the soldier in "The Ballad," Nguyen had a wife at home, Marcia. She will mourn Nguyen at a private funeral at Fort Bragg tomorrow.
Nguyen, in turn, will not be forgotten. Members of Special Forces alumni chapters have a tradition of paying tribute to their fallen brothers for years to come. In Las Vegas, for example, the members of Chapter 51 gather every month. They commence each meeting reciting the names of those Special Forces soldiers killed that month. The list for November begins with Sergeant First Class William Everheart, killed in 1963, and contains 74 other names, most of them killed in the land of Nguyen's birth.
No matter what happens with troop levels in Iraq in the coming months, members of the U.S. Army Special Forces will surely be putting themselves in harm's way throughout the world in the years to come. They will do so selflessly, in the name of the Special Forces motto "de oppresso liber," to free the oppressed.
==Another news story==
Recordnet (by: David Siders) - A 38-year-old Green Beret who went to high school in Stockton and Tracy has been killed in Iraq, possibly by friendly fire, officials said Friday.
Army Special Forces Sgt. 1st Class Tung M. Nguyen died of a gunshot wound Tuesday in Baghdad, Army Special Forces Command said in a statement.
Nguyen, a communications sergeant, was highly decorated and recently taught at the Army's John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C., where he was stationed, according to the report.
The Vietnam native moved to San Francisco when he was 11 and lived in Stockton and Tracy as a teenager; he graduated from Tracy High School in 1986, his brother Howson Nguyen said Friday.
The brothers used to fish for stripers and catfish at Whiskey Slough, the 39-year-old Antioch man said.
"He did a lot of fishing here in Stockton," Howson Nguyen said. "He loved to fish. He loved to shoot. You know, hunting and stuff."
Tung Nguyen entered the military in 1986 and became a Green Beret in 1993, according to the report.
The Department of Defence said in a statement that Nguyen died when his unit encountered enemy forces using small arms. Special Forces Command said in its report that initial indications were his "wounds may have resulted from friendly fire."
Howson Nguyen said his brother always wanted to be in the military and was good at his job. He said Tung Nguyen would tell his worried parents, Nguyen Van Tuan and Phan Cong Duc of Alameda, that he only patrolled at night and always was in a safe area.
"Now that he's passed away, I told my mom, 'Mom, he was just saying that to make you feel comfortable,' " Howson Nguyen said.
At least 15 other troops with ties to San Joaquin County have died during U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least five of them had ties to Tracy, and at least six others had ties to Stockton.
Tung Nguyen is survived by his wife, Marcia, of Raeford, N.C., according to the military, and his brother. Marcia Nguyen could not be reached by phone Friday.
1 comment:
Thank You for your services
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