Army 2nd Lt. Richard Torres

Died October 6, 2003 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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25, of Clarksville, Tenn.; assigned to 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.; killed Oct. 6 when his convoy, on combat patrol, was hit by an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.

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Former Austin Peay ROTC graduate killed in Iraq

Associated Press

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — A former award-winning ROTC graduate at Austin Peay State University was killed Oct. 6 in Iraq when his convoy was hit by a homemade explosive, the Department of Defense said.

Second Lt. Richard Torres, 25, was assigned to 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum in northern New York. He was originally from New Jersey.

Torres had been a sergeant with the 326th Engineer Battalion at Fort Campbell, Ky., before he enrolled in Austin Peay’s ROTC program in Clarksville.

He graduated in May 2002. Torres is the first Austin Peay ROTC graduate killed in combat since the school began the program in 1971.

“He was truly an all-around outstanding young man, (possessing) all the attributes and qualities of a junior leader in the Army,” Lt. Col. Pat O’Hara, professor of Military Science at Austin Peay, said in an e-mail sent to friends of Torres and obtained by The (Clarksville, Tenn.) Leaf-Chronicle newspaper.

Lt. Col. Greg Lane, an assistant professor of military science at Austin Peay, said Torres was originally from Bloomfield, N.J., and that his parents still live there. Torres is survived by his wife, Linda.

After graduating, Torres went to Fort Benning, Ga., to attend the Infantry Officer Basic Course. He was most recently assigned to the 10th Mountain Division.

After a month at Fort Drum, training in urban operations for Afghanistan, his unit deployed to Iraq where he had been for about two months.