A former high school cheerleader and National Honor Society member,Specialist Faith R. Hinkley,U.S. Army,23,died on 7 August during a rocket attack in Iskandariya,Iraq.Specialist Hinkley,the latest of more than two dozen female service members to die in the Iraq War,was killed by shrapnel as she and two comrades attempted to take shelter in a bunker when their office came under militant attack.
A Human Intelligence Collector with the 502nd Military Intelligence Battalion,201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade from Joint Base Lewis-McChord,Washington,Specialist Hinkley was a native of Monte Vista,Colorado,and the second resident of that town to be killed in the Iraq War.The first was U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Glen R. Martinez.Specialist Hinkley had enlisted in August,2007 after studying for a year at the University of Colorado,surprising those who knew her.She had received the National Defense Service Medal,Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and Army Service Ribbon,and was to return home in about a month.Her brigade had deployed to Iraq last September.It was her first deployment.
Corporal Martinez died in May,2008 when the Humvee he was riding in struck a roadside bomb near Fallujah.Monte Vista is a small farm town of 4300 in Southern Colorado's San Luis Valley.
As of 24 August,4407 U.S. service members had died in the Iraq War,according to the Defense Department.U.S. combat operations in Iraq have formally ended,but training and advice missions will continue for some time in support of the young democracy,as will special forces counterterrorism activity.Iraq will remain an unpredictable and dangerous posting,regardless of one's military operational specialty or location.
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