Army Sgt. 1st Class Robert E. Dunham

Died May 24, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

36, of Baltimore; assigned to 1st Brigade Transition Team, and attached to the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.; died May 24 in Baghdad of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Also killed was Staff Sgt. Russell K. Shoemaker.

---

Baltimore native, a former honor student, killed in Iraq

The Associated Press

BALTIMORE — Sgt. 1st Class Robert Dunham, who grew up in the Park Heights community in west Baltimore, was killed in Iraq when the Humvee he was riding was hit by an explosive device near Baghdad, his family said.

Dunham, 36, had been serving in Iraq since January, according to his brother, Charles Dunham of Parkville. He lived at Fort Gordon, Ga., with his wife and five children.

“I believe he really liked what he did,” Charles Dunham told The (Baltimore) Sun. “He loved to serve. He was a giving person, real loving, and the Army was good to his family.”

Sgt. Dunham had been concerned about the danger in Iraq, particularly after a truck in a convoy he was in recently was heavily damaged by an improvised explosive device, his brother said.

The Department of Defense had not publicly confirmed Dunham’s death May 25, but family members said they were notified May 24.

Dunham graduated in 1988 from Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, where he studied industrial electronics, his brother said. He was an honors student who loved playing basketball in community leagues.

He joined the Army the same year he graduated and trained at Fort Dix, N.J., to work with communications equipment. He was stationed in Germany, Kansas and Arkansas before his family settled in Georgia.

He served in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, in Bosnia and in Somalia and had received Special Forces training before his latest tour in Iraq, his brother said.