Army Spc. Ryan E. Doltz

Died June 5, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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26, of Mine Hill, N.J., assigned to Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery, Army National Guard, Lawrenceville, N.J.; killed June 5 when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.

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N.J. soldier killed in Iraq identified

Associated Press

MINE HILL, N.J. — Flags were ordered flown at half staff in this Morris County town to honor a New Jersey Army National Guard soldier killed in Iraq over the weekend.

Cheryl Doltz confirmed to The Associated Press Sunday night that her son, Spc. Ryan E. Doltz, 26, was one of two New Jersey Guard members killed Saturday.

Doltz’s parents declined further comment.

“The community is just devastated,” former fire chief Rich Conroy, who has known the family for years, told the Daily Record of Parsippany.

Doltz was a 1996 graduate of Dover High School and a 2002 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute. He was deployed to Iraq in April, the Daily Record reported.

Mayor Richard Leary said he ordered flags in town be flown at half-staff on Saturday after learning of Doltz’s death, which was not officially announced by the Army.

The name of the other soldier was still pending release by the military.

Saturday’s casualties followed the deaths of Spc. Christopher M. Duffy, 26, of Brick, and Sgt. Frank Carvill, 51, of Carlstadt, who died in an ambush in Baghdad on Friday. Three other New Jerseyans were injured in that attack.

The four dead soldiers were members of the 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery, a unit that deployed to Iraq beginning in February to serve with Task Force Baghdad and conduct security details in the city.

Members of the 112th drill at armories in Morristown, Lawrenceville, Toms River and Cherry Hill. Before their deployment, they underwent a month of military police training at Fort Dix, The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark reported.

The four soldiers were the first New Jersey National Guardsmen to be killed in Iraq.

News of the deaths has hit the state’s military community hard, with some 300 New Jersey Guard members remaining in Iraq and their families anxiously awaiting word.

“When it’s one of our own, it touches very deeply,” battalion commander Lt. Col. Robert Schofield said over the weekend.

Duffy’s and Carvill’s vehicles came under attack shortly after 1 p.m. local time on Palestine Street, near the Shiite district of Sadr City, on Friday. Video from Associated Press Television News showed the burning wreckage of a Humvee and a huge plume of black smoke rising from the mangled vehicle.

In all, five U.S. soldiers were killed and five wounded when their vehicles were attacked in east Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

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VMI graduate dies in Iraq

LEXINGTON, Va. — The conflict in Iraq has claimed the life of a Virginia Military Institute graduate known by family and friends for his determined spirit, energy and generosity.

Spc. Ryan Doltz, 26, of Mine Hill, N.J., died in Baghdad on Saturday when the vehicle in which he was riding hit an improvised explosive device. Also killed was Sgt. Humberto F. Timoteo, 25, of Newark, N.J., according to the Defense Department.

Both were serving in the New Jersey Army National Guard’s 3rd Battalion, 112th Field Artillery, the department said.

While training for the mission, Doltz broke both his heels — injuries that probably would have kept him stateside except for his drive to serve his country, said his mother, Cheryl Doltz.

“He was absolutely determined to get back to his unit,” Doltz said by phone Tuesday.

The prognosis was for six weeks in a wheelchair and six months of rehabilitation. He astonished doctors by recovering after eight weeks and joining his Guard unit on Good Friday, his mother said.

Doltz graduated from VMI in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in history, the school said.

After graduation, Doltz served a year with the National Guard protecting a chemical-weapons site in Aberdeen, Md., friends and family said.

He was working part-time with a construction contractor when his unit was ordered to Iraq, Cheryl Doltz said.

His friends described him as energetic and said he was a caring and trustworthy comrade.

“He had the biggest heart of anybody I know,” said Howard Cook, a Marine Corps reservist in Richmond who entered VMI a year later than Doltz. “He was just one of those all-around good guys that would do anything for you.”

— Associated Press