Facing Our Losses - Iraq 2004

563rd to die: March 16, 2004—Army 1st Lt. Michael R. Adams, 24, of Leavenworth, died after a passing vehicle struck his tank near the Kuwait border and caused the barrel of the .50 caliber gun to swing and strike him. Adams, with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Brigade, was a 1998 graduate of Kentridge High School in Kent. Parents Don and Barbara Adams of Leavenworth received an e-mail from their son two days before the accident, saying, "The next time you hear from me, it'll be from Kuwait." Then he'd be heading home. He is buried at West Point, from which he graduated. "The motto at West Point is 'Duty, honor, country," said Don Adams. "He embraced those ideals."

539th to die: Feb. 16, 2004—Army Sgt. Michael M. Merila, 23, a military paralegal, fatally wounded about 35 miles west of Mosul when a roadside bomb struck his convoy. A 1998 graduate of Buena High School in Sierra Vista, Ariz., Merila joined the Army in 2001 and was stationed at Fort Lewis. Unmarried, he went to Iraq in November as a Stryker brigade legal advisor; he was posthumously promoted to sergeant. Merila's mother, Susan, is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and his father, Michael, a retired Army chief warrant officer. "Sgt. Merila," said Ft. Lewis commander Lt. Gen. Edward Soriano at a memorial service in Arizona, "was a tremendous soldier who had a bright future in the Army."

533rd to die: Feb. 9, 2004—Sgt. Thomas D. Robbins, 27, assigned to 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment (Stryker), Fort Lewis. He and a second solider from another unit were helping to move a collection of unexploded ordinance, rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds which detonated accidentally. Robbins, married, went to high school in Delmar, N.Y. He was a "very good student who distinguished himself in art and a number of extracurricular activities," said his high-school principal, Michael Tebbano. Robbins played soccer in high school and ran track. He is pictured competing in the hurdles in a varsity track photo in the 1994 yearbook

514th to die: Jan. 25, 2004—Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, 29, Bremerton, killed when his boat capsized during patrol on the Tigris River. Was a sniper assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry, based at Fort Lewis. A 1992 graduate of Olympic High School, Bunda was married with two children. He was initially listed as missing in action until his body was found several weeks later—a fate that was "killing me softly," said his mother, Lita Vigil. Born and raised in the Philippines, Bunda came to live with his mother and stepfather in Bremerton in 1991. Said stepfather Thomas Vigil, a Navy vet: "He was a good soldier, a good father, and a good son. He died doing what he did best, and that's his job. He was a professional."

485th to die: Jan. 7, 2004—Army Pfc. Jesse D. Mizener, 23, was killed in Baghdad after a mortar round landed in the Army's Logistics Base. Mizener was assigned to the 542nd Maintenance Company at Fort Lewis. Married, with three children, Mizener grew up in Stockton, Calif. His childhood dream was to serve his country, said his widow, Nicole. Fellow solider Jasper Duran, at Mizener's funeral, said the two had a pact that if either was killed in Iraq, the survivor would comfort the other's family. "He was there for everyone. Everyone. You, me, the Iraqi people. He felt for everyone, not just himself," Duran said.