As I was doing a bit of research on this news item I came across this article that talked about one of his victims.
I hope the jury hears of the fine men he took.
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Updates on the aftermath of Major Gregory Stone's death
The mood at Boise’s Gowen Field is solemn today following news of the death Tuesday of an Idaho guardsman in Kuwait. Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, died from wounds incurred in a grenade attack blamed on an Army sergeant. Stone, an Oregon native based in Boise, was pronounced dead Tuesday at an Army field hospital in Kuwait.
“We lost one of our own,” said Brig. Gen. Gary Sayler, commander of the 124th Wing of the Idaho Air Guard, said today.
“That's the price he paid. That's the price the country pays.”
Idaho officials don’t know yet when Stone’s body will be returned to Idaho.
“Today our thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of of Major Stone,” said Sayler. “Major Stone upheld the finest traditions of the Air National Guard.”
Gov. Dirk Kempthorne extended his prayers to Stone’s family.
“This community will grieve,” Kempthorne said today. “We know that this is one of the occurrences with war. We will see casualties.”
“He was wonderful, the best son anybody could ask for,” said his stepmother, Sally Stone of Riggins, Idaho.
Stone’s mother, Betty Lenzi of Ontario, Ore., said Wednesday she was too upset to talk.
Lt. Col. Tim Marsano, spokesman for the Idaho Air National Guard, said Stone, a 20-year active and reserve veteran of the Air Force, was the Air Liaison Officer with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania.
Stone was born in Weiser but grew up mostly in Portland, where he graduated from Benson High School and Oregon State University. He enlisted in 1983, went through the ROTC program at Oregon State and was commissioned in 1988. He eventually settled in Idaho.
Stone had two sons, ages 11 and 7, who live in Boise. The three often went fishing, and the boys recently convinced Stone to try snowboarding as well, said family friend and Chaplain Maj. Thomas G. Westall, who is retired from the U.S. Air Force. Westall, pastor of Mountain Home Bible Church, is serving as a spokesman for Stone’s ex-wife Tonya Stone. The two divorced in 2000, but Stone remained close and spent time with the boys every day, Westall said.
“The kids are doing as well as can be expected right now, and their mom is extremely distraught, can barely talk,” Westall said. “He was a great dad and a great officer.”
Stone is the second soldier to die in the attack apparently carried out Sunday by another member of his unit, the 101st Airborne Division, at a military base in Kuwait. Stone was an Air Guard liaison to the Army. Sgt. Asan Akbar is in custody in the attack. He was shipped to a military jail in Germany on Tuesday after a judge found probable cause to try him for the crime. Akbar, an American Muslim who told family members he was wary of going to war in Iraq, has not been charged.
Thank you!