A couple of months after returning from his first tour in Iraq, Air Force Staff Sgt. Dustin W. Peters was doing one of the things he loved best: four-wheeling with his best friend, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Harnack.
He had just bought a Ford pickup truck and suddenly found himself stuck in muddy water up to its windshield.
“We sat there for about four hours trying to get him out,” Harnack said. “We hooked three trucks up to the back of his and yanked him out.”
Peters, 25, of El Dorado, Kan., was a young daredevil who volunteered to go to Iraq a second time because he was familiar with it. He died July 11 in enemy action near Forward Operating Base Summerall in Iraq.
He was part of the 314th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., assigned to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing and attached to the Army’s 494th Truck Company at Balad Air Base in Iraq.
He made up his mind to join the Air Force shortly after graduating from Shirley High School in Shirley, Ark.
“He just wanted to do his 20 years and move on,” Harnack said. “He loved his job.”
Peters also liked hunting and fishing and was considered the life of the party.
“He always had friends around him and was always ready to have a good time,” Harnack said.
But when it came to the Air Force, he was serious. Peters received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, among other medals.
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A helping hand: Army Spec. William R. Emanuel IV, 19, always demonstrated a deep devotion to family and close friends.
The Stockton, Calif., man worked odd jobs as soon as he was old enough and once saved up enough money to buy a riding lawnmower for his aunt, whose demanding yard work cut into time spent with her children.
His mother, Jane, said he even ran a landscaping company for a former neighbor who was injured for six months.
Emanuel was killed in a mortar attack July 8 in Baghdad while at the Iraqi National Guard Headquarters. Emanuel was killed with four other soldiers assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in Schweinfurt, Germany.
“He would do anything to help people,” his mother said, recalling crowds of people at his funeral. She never realized how many lives he touched, she said.
Emanuel, known as T.J., was unbeatable at an annual family Christmas pancake-eating contest. His mother said he ate 16 pancakes at their last Christmas gathering. The family ended the tradition this past Christmas.
He graduated early from an alternative school in Stockton and joined the Army. He was riveted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and his mother said he wanted to be a police officer or firefighter.
“He believed in what he was fighting for,” she said.
His hometown has plans to name a street after Emanuel, and officials at the high school he attended told his mother they wanted to name part of the school after him.
An inspiration for school: Michael C. Barkey’s presence was felt at every Northwest Indian High School football game last season in Canal Fulton, Ohio.
The team battle cry was “Mikey! Mikey! Mikey!” as they headed onto the field, wearing Barkey’s number 33 on all of their helmets.
They honored Barkey, a former two-way starter on the team, who died in Iraq July 7 in Ar Ramadi while serving with the Army National Guard’s 1484th Transportation Company, based in Akron, Ohio.
Barkey died after a vehicle being towed by a truck he was on had a tire shot out by an enemy sniper, causing both vehicles to flip. Barkey was thrown from his truck and killed.
As a senior football player, he was a leader on a team that won just four games, the first season for coach Vic Whiting.
“After our last game [in 1999] … he said, `I don’t want to leave, because I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to win and win and win. I can feel it,'” said Whiting, who took the team to the state semifinals last season. “He really wanted to be a part of things–and now he is.”
After graduating from high school in 2000, Barkey got his degree in fire-fighting technology and planned to be a firefighter.
“He got three offers while he was in Iraq,” said his mother, Julia, whose concern for him is evident even in mourning.
“I know with time the pain will diminish,” she said. “But my big fear is that he’s going to be forgotten.
“But his friends say, `We’ll never forget him. We’ll never forget him.’
“And I know they won’t.”