Army Sgt. Mark A. Stone

Died April 28, 2008 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

22, of Buchanan Dam, Texas; assigned to the 94th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Polk, La.; died April 28 in Baghdad of wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his forward operating base with indirect fire. Also killed were Pfc. Adam L. Marion and Sgt. Marcus C. Mathes.

---

Army Sgt. Mark A. Stone remembered

The Associated Press

As a teen, Mark A. Stone wanted a swimming pool in the backyard.

His family couldn’t afford it — Stone’s mother had died a few years earlier, and a back injury kept his father, Don, out of work.

So Stone began to dig. Two years later, four feet down, he hit rock.

Even if the pool was just a dream, he grabbed a pick ax anyway, just to try.

Stone, 22, of Buchanan Dam, Texas, was killed April 28 in Baghdad of wounds from indirect fire. He was assigned to Fort Polk and had served a year in Afghanistan.

“I’m proud of my brother,” said his brother, Jason Stone. “He died for his country. I’m sure all his friends and family are going to miss him.”

He loved tinkering with his truck and was known to listen quietly, with a somber expression.

“He chose his words wisely,” said Zane Lewis, Stone’s best friend. “He would never talk just to talk.”

Lewis described Stone as the guy who once helped him, without a word of complaint, unload an entire truckload of printers for Lewis’ family business. It’s the kind of thing Stone was always willing to do, Lewis said, seemingly just for the chance to hang out.