Army Sgt. 1st Class Stephen C. Kennedy

Died April 4, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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35, of Oak Ridge, Tenn.; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Tennessee Army National Guard, Lenoir City, Tenn.; killed April 4 when his patrol was attacked by enemy forces using small-arms fire in Balad Ruz, Iraq. Also killed was Staff Sgt. Christopher W. Dill.

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Tennessee soldier killed in Iraq

By Duncan Mansfield

Associated Press

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — A “Happy Birthday” balloon waved in the breeze above a mailbox covered in flowers outside Staff Sgt. Stephen C. Kennedy’s modest home Wednesday. Inside, his family mourned his death in Iraq.

Kennedy was the second member of the Knoxville-based 278th National Guard Regimental Combat Team to die in Iraq since the 3,200-man unit arrived in November. He was killed Monday in fierce fighting at an insurgent base south of Balad Ruz.

He would have turned 36 on Wednesday.

A chaplain and military escort arrived at his family’s doorstep Monday night to inform his wife, Tiffany, and their four children, some from a previous marriage. “The only words that went through my mind were, ‘Oh, God, why Stephen?”’ she said Wednesday.

Her voice cracked as she talked about her husband of nearly four years.

“Whether he had this job or not, he was always a hero to us, “ she said.

“My husband loved his job. He loved his country and he loved his family. And (he) felt that going over there and doing what he was doing was right, because it was for his family and it was for his country. That’s what I want everybody to know.”

Kennedy joined the Marine Corps out of high school in Bremerton, Wash., in 1988 and served four years through the first Gulf War. Afterward, he lived in Florida for a while, then moved to Tennessee.

He joined the Tennessee Army National Guard 11 years ago. For the past year, he was a full-time military clerk with the 278th’s Company D, 1st Squadron in Lenoir City.

“I knew it when I got into our marriage that was his job and that is what he wanted to do, and I stood behind him in whatever he decided,” Tiffany said. “But with him in the Guard, ... you don’t expect them to be shipped off anywhere.”

Her view of the war didn’t affect her admiration for Stephen and his comrades.

“As I have always, I personally may not support the war, but I support the soldiers,” she said.

Kennedy was from a military family. His father, Bob Kennedy of Rockledge, Fla., is a retired 28-year veteran of the Navy’s submarine fleet. His older brother, Robert Jr., in New York has made the Coast Guard his career. And his younger sister, Bobbie, who lives in Connecticut, is married to a career Navy man.

“I am pleased that he joined the military,” Bob Kennedy said of his son. “I counted it up and between my brothers and sons, we have 100 years’ service.”

But that didn’t prepare him for Tiffany’s call Monday to tell him Stephen was dead.

“I could feel the blood draining from my head, and I developed the shakes,” Bob Kennedy recalled. Stoically, he added, “And then we tried to deal with it from there.”

He and his wife, Jo, arrived in Tennessee on Tuesday afternoon.

“It is conditioning I guess. You plug along and do your job. You don’t have to like what happens. But you do have to accept that it did happen. You can’t change it. All you can do is adapt to it, and go on with your life,” the father said. “Our primary concern right now is Tiffany and the children.”

The family recounted how Stephen Kennedy was active in Boy Scouts, Little League, football and soccer as a youth, and later was a scout master in Lenoir City, where he and Tiffany lived until two years ago.

“He loved children and was always laughing,” Bob Kennedy said.

Tiffany said she talked to her husband daily by telephone or e-mail while he was in Iraq. He never wanted to talk about what he was doing there, only about what was happening at home.

According to reports, Kennedy was killed when a unit of about 25 U.S. troops and 200 Iraqi army soldiers searching for a cache of weapons were ambushed by insurgents hiding in canals and ditches. “We drove into a shooter’s alley,” a sergeant in the unit said.

After a four-hour gun battle, Kennedy, another U.S. soldier and two Iraqi soldiers were dead, two members of the 278th and 15 Iraqi soldiers were wounded, and more than 15 insurgents were killed.

Tiffany Kennedy said she doesn’t care about the details. “Right now I think we just need to get through our grieving,” she said.