1,043rd to die: April 11, 2010 – Army Spc. Joseph T. Caron, 21, of Tacoma, died from an enemy explosive while on foot patrol in Kandahar province. A student at Washington High in Parkland, where he was on the wrestling and football teams, Caron joined the service after graduation in 2007 and became a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. His family last saw him home on leave around Christmastime. "He was scared," said his stepmother Karen Caron, "but he knew he had a job to do and a mission to do." Said his father Jeffrey Caron, an Army veteran, "He believed wholeheartedly in what he was doing, and his concerns were for his fellow soldiers and the difficulty of the mission that they're performing." Added his uncle, Patrick Caron: "He was a good soldier. He knew the risks. He had accepted those risks. He just wanted to fight his way through it."
1,031st to die: March 29, 2010 - Army Pfc. James L. Miller, 21, of Yakima, died in Dashat, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Fort Lewis. He enlisted 2008 and was on his first deployment. Married, with a child, Miller was expected home for the 4th of July. "He was excited. [It was] almost time to come home," said his mother Kim Miller. "He had just Skyped his wife and saw his little girl and was talking about her talking to him, saying, ‘Daddy! Daddy!'" Miller graduated from Chugiak High School in Anchorage, then moved to Washington and studied mechanics at Yakima Valley Community College. He joined the Army in 2009 to provide for his family, his mother said. "He was serving his country. He had three more months, and he would've been home. But that didn't happen," Kim Miller said.
1,023rd to die: March 16, 2010 – Army Sgt. Joel D. Clarkson, 23, a Fort Lewis Ranger from Fairbanks, Alaska, died at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, of wounds sustained March 13 during combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Joint Base Lewis-McChord. He’d been seriously wounded in a fierce engagement with a heavily armed enemy force whose base of operations were destroyed along with weapons and ammunition. Clarkson, on his fifth deployment, "was the epitome of the Ranger Team Leader - he cared deeply for his men, always led from the front, and was at his best when the situation was the most dire," said Ranger commander Col. Michael E. Kurilla. Clarkson is survived by his widow and their son.
1,014th to die: March 4, 2010 – Army Sgt. Anthony A. Paci, 30, a Fort Lewis Stryker soldier from Rockville, Md., died at Gereshk, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered during a vehicle rollover. He was assigned to the 5th Stryker Brigade from Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Family members said Paci was in the top position on a Stryker vehicle and yelled for his driver to swerve to avoid an oncoming car carrying an Afghan family. The Stryker rolled over in the process, injuring two soldiers and killing Paci. "The measure of his life is far greater than the number of years he lived, but this you all know," said Capt. Rick Thompson, an Army chaplain. "For what we do with our time is the greatest measure of our lives." Paci earned his high school GED and joined the Army, serving as a mortar man in Iraq. Married, he was the father of three children.
1,004th to die: Feb. 21, 2010 – Marine Lance Cpl. Eric L. Ward, 19, of Redmond, died in a what the Army would only say was a "hostile incident" while supporting combat operations in Helmand province. A machine gunner, he was assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was a fourth-generation Marine, who, said his father Steven Ward, had dreamed of joining the Corps from an early age. Ward "was always the person to make you laugh no matter what happened," said friend and fellow Marine Trey Hoover. "No matter what happened, where we were at, even if we were sleeping in the field getting a torrential downpour rained on us, he'd always make it funny." Ward, who attended Snoqualmie Valley Public Schools, always bought extra sets of school supplies to give to those who were less fortunate, recalled Steven Ward. "He was a natural leader," said Ward. "He was proud to serve. He was proud for his family. He was strong."
983rd to die: Feb. 9, 2010 – Army Sgt. Adam J. Ray, 23, a Fort Lewis Stryker soldier from Louisville, Ky., died in southern Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. In a statement, his mother and father, Jim and Donna Ray of Kentucky, said: "Adam was a brave young man. He first wanted to join the Army after visiting a WWII museum when he was in the third grade. He fell in love with the military life - which I am sure he would say was very different than what he thought it would be. Yet he loved what he was doing. He hated the war but he truly believed that America was doing the right thing…. Being Adam’s parents was a privilege and an honor."
