Army Sgt. 1st Class Donald W. Eacho

Died March 4, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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38, of Black Creek, Wis.; assigned to the 1st Infantry Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Camp Hovey, Korea; killed March 4 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. Also killed were Capt. Sean Grimes, Cpl. Stephen M. McGowan and Spc. Wade Michael Twyman.

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Wisconsin relatives mourn New York soldier

Associated Press

KENOSHA, Wis. — Wisconsin relatives said Monday they are mourning the death of a 17-year Army veteran in Iraq last week.

Diane Eacho, who lives in nearby Racine, told the Kenosha News she was informed Friday that her son, Staff Sgt. Donald Eacho, 38, died that day when the vehicle he was in hit a roadside bomb near Ramadi.

Her son, who grew up in Kenosha before attending high school in the Wisconsin community of Seymour, lived in Watertown, N.Y., with his wife and two sons, she said. She said he was stationed in Iraq since August, and she last saw him in the fall when he was home at Thanksgiving.

“He liked what he was doing,” his sister, Kathy Whiteside of Kenosha, told the newspaper. “He thought of his guys before he thought of himself. When they were in Iraq, he would not give himself e-mail until his guys had e-mail — they were his family, too.”

His mother said she last talked to him by phone about a month ago.

Before going to Iraq, Eacho was awarded the Soldier’s Medal, one of the Army’s highest honors for heroism outside of combat, for his 2003 rescue of a 4-year-old girl and her grandfather who were trapped in an overturned car on a Pennsylvania road.