Army Pfc. Casey M. LaWare

Died April 9, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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19, of Redding, Calif.; assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Irwin, Calif.; died April 9 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, of non-combat-related injuries sustained April 6 in Mahmudiyah, Iraq.

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Redding soldier dies in Iraq

Associated Press

REDDING, Calif. — As a child, Pfc. Casey M. LaWare didn’t like to hunt because he didn’t want to shoot anything.

But before he even graduated from high school, LaWare enlisted in the Army, where he was trained as a sharpshooter and shipped to Iraq.

LaWare, a 19-year-old from Redding, died Saturday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the Pentagon announced Wednesday. LaWare was severely burned in a guard tower fire in Mahmudiyah, Iraq, three days earlier.

He sustained second- and third-degree burns over 60 percent of his body. An official cause of the fire has not been released by the military.

“The Army was what he wanted to do. He was really proud to be there,” Casey’s mother, Kathy Grace, told the Redding Record Searchlight.

LaWare’s family was originally told that his injuries were not life threatening before receiving the bad news.

“We were so sure he was on his way home,” Grace said. “We were ready to help him through the long recovery. We were really just hopeful.”

Grace said that her son liked being in the Army but wasn’t eager to fight. When asked as a child whether he would like to go hunting, Casey had replied, “Absolutely not. I don’t want to shoot anything,” his father, Michael LaWare, recalled.

LaWare was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Irwin, Calif. He was deployed to the Mosul region in northern Iraq in January as part of the buildup of U.S. forces for the Iraqi election.