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Army Spc. Irving Medina
Died November 14, 2003 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom
22, of Middletown, N.Y.; assigned to 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Fort Riley, Kan.; killed Nov. 14 while traveling in a convoy when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.
Another Fort Riley soldier killed in Iraq
Associated Press
FORT RILEY, Kan. — A Fort Riley soldier died in Iraq when his convoy hit an explosive in Baghdad, the Defense Department said.
Army Spc. Irving Medina, 22, of Middletown, N.Y. was killed Nov. 14, becoming the 14th soldier from the Kansas Army post to die during U.S. military operations in Iraq.
He was a cannon crew member assigned to the 4th Battalion, 1st Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division. Maj. James Buczkowski, a Fort Riley spokesman, said Medina left for Iraq at the end of April.
At the Medina home in Middletown, an American flag flew and a yellow ribbon was on the front porch on Nov. 16. Ana Medina said a West Point officer and chaplain brought the news Friday about her son, whose twin brother Ivan returned recently from 11 months in Iraq.
“I told them no news is good news,” Ivan Medina told the Times Herald-Record of Middletown. “But news came. And like always, it was bad.”
“We all thought we’d see him again,” said Jorge Medina, their father. “I heard her crying and came over and, in Spanish, she told me to tell them to go away, to get out of here.”
His older sister Jenny Medina, a sergeant in the Army Reserves assigned to the staff judge advocate’s office in Coral Gables, Fla., had a copy of Irving’s last email, sent to a friend.
“It has been a real experience out here,” he wrote. “I’ve seen some of the saddest things out here.”
Irving Medina had befriended several Iraqi children in his spare time, his family said, including a 10-year-old boy who was killed in a bombing.
Irving and Ivan Medina were born in Mexico City, their family moving to Middletown when the boys were six. At Goshen High School, Irving played varsity soccer. He later taught local children through a program at Orange County Community College, where he was studying.
Buczkowski said Irving Medina joined the Army in September 2001 and had been stationed at the post since December of that year.