More Detailed Stories on the Lives and Deaths of These and Other Soldiers

IRAQ

251st to die, July 31, 2003—Army Spc. Justin W. Hebert, 20, of Silvana in Snohomish County, the state's first combat fatality in Iraq. See "The War Hits Home," Aug. 20, 2003.

361st to die, Nov. 1, 2003—Army 2nd Lt. Benjamin J. Colgan, 30, Kent, killed in Baghdad while responding to a rocket-propelled-grenade attack. His parents actively opposed the war but supported the troops. See "Weapons of Mass Improvisation," March 9, 2005.

4,219th to die, Nov. 4, 2009—Army Staff Sgt. Amy C. Tirador, 29, of Albany, N.Y., died in Kirkush of injuries sustained from a non-combat-related incident. See blog post "Fort Lewis Sgt. Amy Tirador May Not Have Shot Herself in the Back of the Head After All, Army Says," The Daily Weekly, June 1, 2010.

761st to die, May 5, 2004—Army Pfc. Jesse R. Buryj, 21, with the 66th Military Police Company, Fort Lewis, died from friendly fire, perhaps from a Polish soldier in Karbala when his military vehicle was struck by a dump truck trying to run through a checkpoint. See "Who's Shooting Who?", March 21, 2007.

AFGHANISTAN

25th to die, Feb. 21, 2002—Army Sgt. Thomas Allison, 22, of Roy in Pierce County, who was lost at sea off the Philippines after his Boeing MH-47E Chinook helicopter erupted in a fireball and disappeared, cause unknown. As he wrote his parents, Pat and Buddy Allison, just before his death, "Some of us will get to heaven first." See "Buddy's Monday," March 6, 2002.

106th to die, April 22, 2004—Army Spc. Pat Tillman, 27, a Fort Lewis Ranger and former NFL star whose family lived in University Place near Tacoma, was reportedly killed in an ambush by Afghan militiamen in the mountainous Pakistan border region. However, in December 2004 the Army admitted that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. See blog post "Pat Tillman's Story is Jesse Buryj's Story, and Ken Ballard's and Pat McCaffrey's Story and...", The Daily Weekly, Sept. 1, 2010.

149th to die, Nov. 27, 2004—Army Spc. Harley D. R. Miller, 21, of Spokane, was killed in a plane crash along with two other soldiers and three civilians in Bamian. See "Welcome Aboard Blackwater Airlines," Nov. 14, 2007.