Army 2nd Lt. Leonard M. Cowherd

Died May 16, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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22, of Culpeper, Va.; assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Friedberg, Germany; killed May 16 by sniper and rocket-propelled-grenade fire while securing a building near the Mukhayam Mosque in Karbala, Iraq.

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Virginia soldier killed in Iraq sniper attack

Associated Press

CULPEPER, Va. — A soldier from Culpeper was fatally shot Sunday by an Iraqi sniper during a raid on a building holding insurgents near the Mukhayam Mosque, the Department of Defense said.

Second Lt. Leonard M. Cowherd Jr., 23, was killed in Karbala, about 68 miles southwest of Baghdad, defense officials said Monday.

The Defense Department said Cowherd also received fire from rocket propelled grenades.

“From what I’ve been told, they had recently been moved from Baghdad Island to an area called the Green Zone,” his father, Lenny Cowherd, told the Culpeper Star-Exponent. “The feeling was he would be safer in the Green Zone; however, the catch was his platoon was on reserve for when something went bad.”

Cowherd was a platoon leader with the 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division, based out of Friedberg, Germany. He was in charge of 16 men and four tanks.

Cowherd was scheduled to return home at the end of June, but received an extension last month that would have kept him in Iraq until August.

A 2003 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, Cowherd leaves behind a wife of less than a year in Yorktown.

He is Culpeper County’s first casualty of the Iraq war.

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Hundreds attend memorial service for Va. soldier killed in Iraq

CULPEPER, Va. — A soldier killed in Iraq was remembered Saturday as a positive thinker whose outlook would have helped those he left behind to cope with his loss.

An estimated 400 people packed St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church here to remember 2nd Lt. Leonard M. Cowherd III, a 22-year-old West Point graduate and newlywed who was cut down by a sniper as he stood outside his tank a week earlier in Karbala, Iraq.

“He was my everything, and he was ever since the day I met him,” Cowherd’s widow, Sarah, said, sobbing. “My heart, my soul, my friend and my husband.”

The couple married June 28, 2003, shortly after his graduation from the U.S. Military Academy. In January, he shipped out to command four tanks and 16 men in Iraq.

“He could make any negative situation into a positive situation, and I really wish he was here to help us through that right now,” Sarah Cowherd said.

Speakers also included Cowherd’s twin, Charles, who joked about how much the brothers hated twin jokes, and retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who taught Cowherd at West Point and read from a letter he wrote to Cowherd’s parents in December 2002.

“His dedication and professionalism impresses me tremendously,” McCaffrey wrote to Mary Ann and Leonard Cowherd II. “He is an outstanding young soldier.”

“His life, in my judgment, was a tremendous, shining example,” McCaffrey said.

With a crowd at well over the church’s capacity of 220, the remainder of the mourners watched on closed-circuit TV in the fellowship hall and under outdoor tents.

Cowherd became Culpeper County’s first wartime fatality since the Vietnam War.

He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday.

— Associated Press