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Army Reserve Specialist Brandon Tobler

http://www.komotv.com/stories/23841.htm

Portland Teen Soldier Killed In Iraq

March 24, 2003

By KOMO Staff & News Services

PORTLAND, ORE. - A 19-year-old Portland man was killed over the weekend when his Humvee crashed into another heavy vehicle during a sandstorm in the Persian Gulf.

Army Reserve Specialist Brandon Tobler was killed Saturday as his convoy made its way to Baghdad. He was assigned to the 671st Engineer Brigade in Portland.

Tobler's uncle, Scott Tom, says Tobler joined the Army Reserves to pay for college.

He says Tobler dreamed of returning home to go to college and perhaps become a policeman. He also was interested in attending art school.

Tobler graduated from Franklin High School in Portland. Tobler's uncle also says another female solider in the Humvee was critically injured in that accident.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-24-hodson-usat_x.htm

Sgt. Hodson was considering re-enlisting
By Debbie Howlett, USA TODAY

In the Marine Corps, Sgt. Nicolas Hodson finally found a place where he felt comfortable.

"The last time he was home, he said joining the Marines was the best thing he ever did," says Mara Edinger, a friend and high school classmate. "He really felt he belonged to something."

Hodson, 22, of Smithville, Mo., was killed in a vehicle accident in Iraq. The Defense Department released his name Monday but provided no other details about his death.

He was one of two Marines based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., who died in accidents who were identified Monday. Lance Cpl. Eric Orlowski, 26, of Buffalo, was killed when a machine gun accidentally discharged.

Hodson's four-year stint was due to end in June, and he was trying to decide whether to go college and study engineering or make a career with the Marines.

"He was leaning toward the Marines," says Michelle Smith, a friend near Kansas City, Mo.

Hodson was single but had two sons: Braden, 2, who lives with his mother in Kansas City, Mo., and Marius, 1, who lives with his mother in North Carolina.

He also has a twin sister, Nicole, also in Kansas City. His mother, Gloria Burton, died of cancer in October.

"He was a great person; there wasn't anybody who met him didn't like him," Smith said.

The primary draw to enlist was to finance a college education, says Wayne Kreuger, principal at Smithville High School, where Hodson graduated in 1999.

His passion was basketball and he was one of the better players on the varsity team.

"Nick was the kind of kid who gave what he did his all," Kreuger said. Since graduating, Hodson visited the school on a few occasions, sometimes in uniform. Said Kreuger, "He was proud to be a Marine."

Lance Cpl. Eric Orlowski

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--war-marinekilled0324mar24,0,2856187.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

Marine from Buffalo remembered as proud father

By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

March 24, 2003, 6:19 PM EST

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Lance Cpl. Eric Orlowski was a proud Marine, but above all he was a proud father, the mother of his young daughter said Monday.

"He was always there for his daughter, and he loved her more than anything," Nicole Kross said of her high school sweetheart.

Orlowski, 26, was killed Saturday in an accidental discharge of a .50-caliber machine gun in Iraq, military officials said.

A Marine reservist, he died on his first deployment.

It was something Kross, 24, herself an Air Force reservist, never worried about.

"He was way too strong. I thought he would have come home for sure," she said, tears welling as she spoke in the Buffalo home the two owned together.

Orlowski smiles out from family pictures, holding 3-year-old CamerynLee on his lap.

The couple had gone their separate ways but their daughter kept them close, Kross said. Orlowski, a reservist for about three years, sent her letters from overseas, the last saying he was headed for Iraq.

"I don't think he was scared," Kross said. "The thing he feared most was leaving his daughter."

He'd called his mother and stepfather and CamerynLee just 10 hours before his death, to let them know he was OK. He knew it was 4:30 a.m. Buffalo time, he said, but it was the only time he could get to a phone.

"He was in real high spirits," Kross said.

At his father's suburban Depew home, a Marine flag waved outside and a gold star, the symbol of a serviceman lost, hung on the door. Philip Orlowski declined to speak with reporters.

Orlowski was assigned to the 2nd Tank Battalion of the 2nd Marine Division based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. About 3,500 Marines and sailors attached to the 2nd Marine Brigade departed for the Middle East in January.

On a tree outside Kross' home, neighbors draped red, white and blue bunting and a blue ribbon that said, "Remembering Our Hero."

The Buffalo Sabres planned a moment of silence before Monday's game for Orlowski, an avid sports fan who brought his daughter to games.

"Lance Corporal Orlowski's death brings our struggle in Operation Iraqi Freedom home for all of us," said U.S. Rep. Jack Quinn, R-N.Y.

Kross said she took her daughter to her own mother's grave to explain things.

"She knows my mom is up in heaven. I told her Grandma is watching over us," she said, "and now Daddy's watching over us too."