Army Sgt. Tristan H. Southworth

Died August 22, 2010 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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21, of West Danville, Vt.; assigned to 172nd Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Jericho, Vt.; died Aug. 22 in the Jalil District of Paktya Province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Also killed was Army Sgt. Steven J. Deluzio.

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Vt. Guard mourns soldiers killed in Afghanistan

By Sam Hemingway

Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

COLCHESTER, Vt. — The deaths of two Vermont Army National Guard soldiers during an Aug. 22 firefight with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan underscores the seriousness of the mission that confronts the Guard, a grim-faced Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie said.

“This is a tough time in Afghanistan for our brigade,” Dubie said during a news conference at Camp Johnson in Colchester, where he confirmed the deaths of Sgt. Tristan H. Southworth, 21, of Walden and Sgt. Steven J. Deluzio, 25, of South Glastonbury, Conn. “We’ve drawn a tough assignment.”

Dubie said he met with Southworth’s parents, Michael and Julie Southworth, on Aug. 24 to express his condolences. Southworth was the oldest of three brothers in the family. Dubie became emotional when asked how the Southworth family was doing.

“I can’t really say,” Dubie answered, his eyes watering. He then stood silently before reporters and clicking cameras for a few moments before he departed the room.

The deaths are the second and third the Guard has suffered this year, as its yearlong deployment of 1,500 soldiers enters its ninth month. Only one other time, in 2004 in Iraq, has the Guard lost two soldiers on the same day.

Dubie said he does not yet have full accounts of the soldiers’ deaths.

He said they were part of two platoons made up of Afghan border police and members of the Guard’s 3rd Company, 172nd Infantry, 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based in Jericho. The troops were out on a patrol in a mountainous area in the Jallil District of Paktya province, near the Pakistan border.

“There was an operation to advance in an area of known insurgents,” Dubie said. “They came under attack from a quite large number of insurgents, and that’s where both of our Vermonters were killed.”

Dubie said the firefight lasted about two hours. He said he was told Southworth was killed while trying to rescue another soldier.

“Sergeant Southworth, it is reported, was trying to extricate another soldier when he was mortally wounded,” Dubie said. “There are preliminary reports of actions including Sergeant Southworth that reflect great credit on himself and the unit for courage under fire.”

To honor his valor, the Army posthumously promoted Southworth from specialist to sergeant, Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Lloyd Goodrow said.

Dubie said he did not know many details about the circumstances of Deluzio’s death. Deluzio, 25, was a one-time student of Norwich University in Northfield who joined the Vermont Guard in 2004 and served in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2006 as part of Task Force Saber.

“He’s an example of someone who, instead of joining a unit closer to home, once he joined that unit, he stayed in that unit,” Dubie said. “He’s as much a member of the Vermont National Guard as I am.”

A ceremony for the two fallen soldiers was held Aug. 23 at Bagram Air Force Base. Dubie said some 600 members of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team attended the event. Nearly 1,500 Vermonters are in Afghanistan are a part of the deployment, the Vermont Guard’s largest since World War II.

Dubie planned to visit Deluzio’s parents in Connecticut on Aug. 25. In advance of Dubie’s confirmation of Deluzio’s death, Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell ordered the state’s flag and the American flag lowered to half-staff Aug. 24 to honor Deluzio.

Southworth and Deluzio are the 12th and 13th members of the Vermont National Guard killed in combat since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. A 14th died of natural causes while deployed in Kuwait.

Dubie said he was “never prouder” of the Guard soldiers and their families for their resiliency during the Guard’s ongoing mission in Afghanistan.

“It hurts us all; it pains us all,” he said of the deaths of Southworth and Deluzio. “But the families need to know that we are ready for the mission, we’re capable of the mission, and I think as they’ve talked with their loved ones, I’m sure their loved ones have expressed the fact that they want to finish the mission and then come home.”

Southworth was a four-sport athlete and popular classmate at Hazen Union High School in Hardwick. He graduated in 2007, a year after he joined the Guard.

His former baseball and basketball coaches recalled him as an exceptional athlete and person.

“This is a huge loss to not just the family and friends, but the world in general,” said Dan Hill, Hazen Union’s baseball coach. “He’s what you’d want your kid to be.”

Hill coached the team on its run to the Division III state championship game in 2007, which the Wildcats lost, 1-0, in a gutsy complete-game pitching performance from Southworth. The coach said Southworth, who preferred to play shortstop, was a natural, successful leader.

“He was politely disrespectful. If you made a mistake as a coach, he was all over it,” Hill said.

Southworth spent a year in college in Colorado after graduating from Hazen, then returned to Vermont before his deployment with the Guard. Southworth planned to resume his college career after the mobilization concludes around the end of the year, and he hoped to play baseball at that level, Hill said.

Hill’s son, Aaron Hill, coached Southworth on the Hazen Union basketball team and taught him in physical education and health classes. Aaron Hill said Southworth excelled in the classroom in addition to the field, calling him an “excellent student, a kid that was always looking out for other people.”

The loss is devastating, Aaron Hill said.

“It’s tough anyway, but then for it to be a kid like him, so popular in the community ...” Aaron Hill said, his voice trailing off, the thought unfinished. “He was a guy who would go out of his way to speak to my little kids, to talk to older people who were at games — just a true, good person.”

Southworth is the second Vermont National Guard soldier from a small Caledonia County community killed this summer. A roadside bomb killed Spc. Ryan Grady of West Burke on July 2.

Southworth is the third Vermont guardsman from the Hardwick community killed in five years. Hardwick residents Spcs. Scott McLaughlin and Christopher Merchant were killed in Iraq six months apart in 2005 and 2006.

In Connecticut, Deluzio leaves behind his parents, a fiancée and his brother, staff Sgt. Scott Deluzio, also a member of the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team as a member of Connecticut National Guard, who was returning home from Afghanistan, Dubie said.

“He’s a hero, and he’s the greatest son,” said his father, Mark DeLuzio, his voice choking with emotion. “Two sons I have — the greatest you could ever ask for.”

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1,400 honor fallen Vt. soldier

By Lisa Rathke

The Associated Press

HARDWICK, Vt. — An estimated 1,400 people packed a high school gymnasium on Wednesday to honor Sgt. Tristan Southworth, a friendly, caring person, standout athlete and selfless soldier who was killed in Afghanistan while trying to rescue a colleague.

Former classmates, teammates, teachers, Vermont National Guard members, and community members lined the sidewalks in the heat to get into the funeral at Hazen Union School gym, where not long ago Southworth was a star basketball player.

“He was caring, he was sincere, just an all around nice guy. That’s really what I remember him for,” said Eric Lumsden, 21, of Hardwick, a baseball teammate, who wore his high school jersey to the service.

Southworth, 21, of Walden, died Aug. 22 while trying to rescue a fellow soldier in a prolonged gun battle with insurgents who had attacked his unit using small arms and rocket propelled grenades in Paktika Province, about 12 miles west of the border with Pakistan. Also killed was fellow Vermont National Guard Sgt. Steven J. Deluzio, 25, of South Glastonbury, Conn. An Afghan border police officer was killed in the same battle and another Vermont soldier was wounded and is expected to return to duty.

Southworth, was promoted to sergeant posthumously and awarded a Purple Heart, bronze star and combat infantry badge for his service. That didn’t surprise Darren Mayo, 23, who played high school sports with him.

“Being in the Army is something he wanted to do his whole life. Even in high school, he was one of the kids who signed up. ... If something bad was going to happen, Tristan was the type of kid that would save someone. He did what he loved,” he said.

In a collage of Southworth’s photos and writings, the soldier commended his cousin, who was awarded a medal for jumping on a grenade and saving his fellow men in Vietnam. “I don’t have respect for any person higher than the respect I have for him,” Southworth wrote.

Southworth joined the Guard while in high school in April 2006, graduated from Hazen Union in 2007 and was deployed to Afghanistan in March 2010 as a member of Alpha Company 3-172nd Infantry, a Mountain unit based in Jericho.

He was willing to do whatever was needed and do it well, said Sue Trecartin, who had Southworth in her performance arts class in his senior year. “I think that’s one of the reasons for so much of the turnout of community people, of peers. Just an all around wonderful person,” she said, describing him as a delightful student.

The school expected a large turnout. American Red Cross volunteers handed out bottles of water to mourners, some of whom lined up at the school an hour and a half before the service.

Gov. Jim Douglas and Adjutant Gen. Michael Dubie presented Southworth’s family with the Vermont Patriot Medal, while a banner hanged across a building in the small town of Hardwick that read “Our hero, you will never be forgotten. Rest in peace.”

“There’s just a lot of community support,” said Desiree LaCasse, 20, of Hardwick.

Deborah Fray, 62, was among the mourners. She is from Thomaston, Conn., but spends summers in Walden. She said it was important for her to honor Southworth and show support for his family.

“He did this for the whole country,” she said.

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‘Everybody here is grateful for the sacrifice Tristan made’

By Sam Hemingway

The Burlington (Vt.) Free Press

HARDWICK, Vt. — Eric Colson stood in the sweltering heat at the end of a long line of mourners outside Hazen Union High School, unsure if there would be enough room inside for him to witness the funeral of Sgt. Tristan H.A. Southworth.

It didn’t matter.

Colson did make it inside the Hardwick school — barely — on Sept. 1 and joined nearly 1,400 residents, friends, state dignitaries and guardsmen there to say goodbye to Southworth, a popular 21-year-old Hazen grad killed in an Aug. 22 firefight in Afghanistan while trying to rescue another soldier.

During the short, somber service at which only Guard chaplain Lt. Col. Calvin Kemp spoke, the crowd was told Southworth should be remembered for his life, not his tragic death.

“The man gave his life to his country,” said Colson, a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam and lives in Stannard. “I felt an obligation to show support for the family. I think back on Vietnam, and, well, we’re all comrades.”

“Don’t let your eyes trick you. Don’t let your aching hearts deceive you,” Kemp said. “This is not a moment of despair or hopeless defeat. This is a time of victory. This is not about death at all. It’s about eternal life guaranteed for all of us through Jesus Christ and now certainly given to Tristan.”

Kemp said Southworth, who grew up in rural neighboring Walden, had a deep sense of responsibility to his friends, family, community and country. Southworth, who played three sports and was a good student, joined the Vermont Guard while a junior at Hazen.

“Tris’ life was a life of striving always to excel,” Kemp said. “He thought maybe there was something beyond Walden. ... He went into another land that he didn’t even know because he wanted to help those people and lead them to victory.”

Later in the service, Southworth was posthumously awarded seven medals for his valor as a soldier, including the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Vermont Patriot’s Medal.

As the crowd stood in silence, the awards were presented one by one to Southworth’s parents, Julie and Michael Southworth, by Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie, adjutant general of the Vermont Guard, and Gov. Jim Douglas.

Among those in attendance were the parents of Sgt. Steven Deluzio of Glastonbury, Conn., another Vermont guardsman who was killed during the same firefight, and Sgt. Kevin Grady of St. Johnsbury, the brother of Pfc. Ryan Grady, a Vermont guardsman killed July 2 in Afghanistan.

“It’s tough,” Kevin Grady said when asked how it felt to be at Southworth’s funeral. “It brings back a lot of the same memories.” Ryan Grady, Deluzio and Southworth were among nearly 1,500 guardsmen on a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan set to end in December.

Other dignitaries, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie, also attended the funeral. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was out of state on a long-planned working vacation, and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., was with a congressional delegation en route to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Following the service, the crowd emptied into the parking lot outside the school. Southworth’s flag-draped coffin, accompanied by an honor guard of six guardsmen, emerged at precisely 11 a.m., and nearly 100 Guard officers from at least three states snapped to attention.

Afterward, a motorcade including the hearse carrying Southworth’s coffin snaked through downtown Hardwick to Main Street Cemetery, where Southworth was buried. Small clutches of people holding American flags stood along the street to watch the cars pass.

Brian Forant of Hardwick attended the funeral. He said he wasn’t surprised at the number of people who showed up, because, in a place such as Hardwick, “everybody knows everybody.”

“My son grew up with him and played ball with him,” Forant said. “He was a great kid. Everybody here is grateful for the sacrifice Tristan made. That’s why we’re here.”

The Hardwick area has been hit particularly hard by soldier fatalities.

Two Hardwick members of the Vermont Guard, Spcs. Scott McLaughlin and Christopher Merchant, were killed in Iraq while serving in Ramadi as part of Task Force Saber in 2005 and 2006. In all, 38 service members with Vermont ties have died since 2003 in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Anthony Brochu, 17, of Hardwick, an incoming senior at Hazen, was another of the attendees who waited in the heat for the service to begin. Red Cross volunteers handed out bottled water to anyone who wanted a drink.

Brochu said Southworth was the assistant coach for the Hazen boys soccer team last year and was supposed to serve in that role again during a scheduled two-week respite from Afghanistan this month.

“He liked to help people,” Brochu said. “He wanted to make us better.”

Kemp made the same point during his sermon. The chaplain said Southworth enjoyed being competitive. He played soccer, basketball and baseball, which friends said was his favorite sport. Eighteen of his former baseball teammates sat together at the funeral, all wearing their red Hazen Wildcats team shirts.

“Sports were important to him, not just as a game and certainly not as a business, but as a place to support others, to build them up,” Kemp said.

Kemp also made a reference to a comic strip in describing Kemp.

“He thought that life should have a little Calvin and Hobbes in it,” Kemp said. “Yes, put your nose to the grindstone, but have a little play along the way. Enjoy it. Go for it, but have a good time.”