Corporal Michael Rojas,


Corporal Wade Oglesby

Dear friends,

With my heart heavy tonight, I am asking for your prayers for my friends in the 1-37 FA in Baghdad.  Over 7 months ago, Gabe and I arrived in Iraq and was inserted into this battalion and we worked daily with this unit.  We even became good friends with most of the soldiers.  One of those soldiers happened to be Michael Rojas.  As you all can see, he is very fond of Gabe.  I'll let you read the story of how Mike and his battle buddy Wade paid the ultimate sacrifice for the people of Iraq.  For 4 years, we have given blood, sweat and tears.  God bless the Red Lions, God bless Mike and Wade and may God's angels wrap their wings around these 2 brave soldiers and keep them.  Please pray for the families also.  Thanks so much

This note is from my friend 1SG Pete

I'm allowed to talk about this now because the families have been notified.  On the 18th of April at about 1:00 PM, two fine soldiers were taken from my sister unit, Charlie Battery.  Corporal Michael Rojas, just turned 21 years old, is survived by his wife of 7 months (all deployed time) of Tacoma, Washington and his mother, Debbie, of Fresno, California.  Corporal Wade Oglesby, 28 years old, is survived by his sister, Samantha, and stepfather, David, of Grand Junction, Colorado.  Please also keep Sergeant Lou Paquette in your prayers, he was their leader and the only survivor of this three-man crew.  Of course they are also survived by their extended family of 320 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery and friends around the world.  This is the first loss due to enemy action suffered by this battalion in two deployments to Iraq.

Wednesday was a very active day for my battalion.  At about 11:00 AM, a patrol from Bravo Battery that was traveling about 500 meters behind my own patrol, was attacked by a roadside bomb, an IED.  We responded to assist them, but since they had no injuries or damage we instead took part of their sector to search for possible eyewitnesses.  Not 30 minutes after I returned to the main camp we were notified that the Charlie Battery patrol had been hit, not 300 meters from where my patrol had just passed.  Their lead Humvee passed over a buried IED which totally destroyed the Humvee and killed Michael and Wade instantly; Lou was thrown clear by the blast and survives with minor aches and cuts but of course extensive psychological trauma.  He has asked to stay with the unit and finish the mission and will do so as long as he is fit.  The entire battalion mobilized and flooded this sector, my battery was sent to raid the village where the suspected trigger man lives.  We didn't get him but brought two other individuals back for questioning, but just as importantly, all of these soldiers performed professionally and humanely and we had no incidences of excessive force.  Another positive factor here was that our Operations Center was flooded with calls by concerned citizens feeding us useful information...and notifying us of another, yet to be detonated IED.  This behavior was unheard of our sector four months ago and is the result of increased confidence in our professionalism and a desire to clean up their neighborhoods.  Memorial services will be held here on Monday evening and at Fort Lewis on Tuesday.

Please also remember my close friend, First Sergeant Edward Calip, in your prayers.  He was with a separate patrol but organized the recovery effort in spite of his grief.  As is customary at our level of seniority, he is maintaining the level of strength needed to get his unit through this tragedy but relies heavily on me, Command Sergeant Major Green and First Sergeant Becker to provide him with the outlet needed to maintain his sanity.  The mission continues, and we are even more careful than we were before.  I love you all,