Army Sgt. Keith E. Fiscus

Died December 2, 2006 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

26, of Townsend, Del.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; died Dec. 2 of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during combat operations in Baghdad.

---

Delaware soldier to be buried in Arlington National cemetery

By Randall Chase

The Associated Press

DOVER, Del. — A Delaware soldier who joined the military against his mother’s wishes and signed up for a second combat tour in Iraq will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, his family said Thursday.

Army Sgt. Keith E. Fiscus, 26, of Townsend, died Saturday in Baghdad of injuries suffered when a bomb detonated near his vehicle during combat operations, the Pentagon said.

Fiscus was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, based at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.

Pamela Fiscus said her son will be buried at Arlington next Thursday, following a service in Delaware.

“I know it’s an honor to be buried at Arlington,” she said. “I think he would be honored to be there.”

Keith Fiscus was raised in Los Angeles but moved with his family to Delaware in 1998, graduating from Glasgow High School later that year. He worked at a Genuardi’s supermarket in Glasgow, and later as a customer service representative for Discover Card, before enlisting in the Army in 2002.

“I begged him not to join the military. I tried to talk him out of it,” said Pamela Fiscus, whose father and father-in-law both served in uniform.

Fiscus said she let military recruiters know they were not welcome in her house, but that her son would not be dissuaded.

“It was destined for him to be soldier,” she said. “When he was a young boy, his favorite toy was G.I. Joe. He kept telling me, ‘Mom, this is what I want to do.”’

After an initial 14-month tour of duty in Iraq, Keith Fiscus returned to the United States, visiting with his family in Delaware for about three weeks before returning to Hawaii. Pamela Fiscus said her son, who re-enlisted while still in Iraq, had a hard time adjusting to civilian life and volunteered for a second deployment overseas.

“He always told me he would go back as many times as he had to go back,” she said. “I could not talk him out of it, because he was destined to be an American soldier.”

Keith Fiscus, an avid golfer who played on his high school team in California and loved music and bass fishing, tried to call home at least once a week and exchange e-mails with his family twice a week. He last spoke to his mother on Nov. 30, two days before he was killed.

“He kept telling me ‘Mom, it’s OK, don’t worry,’” Mrs. Fiscus said.

During his second tour in Iraq, Fiscus served as a gunner for an explosive ordnance disposal unit, providing protection for his fellow soldiers. Before being deployed, he received explosives training at Aberdeen, Md., where he met a new girlfriend, who also was deployed to Iraq, his mother said.

In their last conversation, Fiscus told his mother that he was going to leave the infantry and attend EOD training school in Florida, and that he planned to join a police bomb squad after his enlistment was up in 2010.

Fiscus is the 14th serviceman from Delaware to die in Iraq.

“I think it’s time all the soldiers come home. It’s enough,” his mother said.

“He told me that they were under constant attack, and that they knew they were not wanted there and knew that they were fighting a senseless war,” she added. “... I’m bitter towards it all.”