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- The People Behind The Sacrifice
Army Staff Sgt. Jason L. Paton
Died August 22, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom
25, of Poway, Calif.; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries sustained when his helicopter crashed. Also killed were Capt. Corry P. Tyler, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Paul J. Flynn, Sgt. Matthew L. Tallman, Rickey L. Bell, Capt. Derek A. Dobogai, Sgt. Garrett I. McLead, Cpl. Jeremy P. Bouffard, Cpl. Phillip J. Brodnick, Cpl. Joshua S. Harmon, Cpl. Nathan C. Hubbard, Spc. Michael A. Hook, Cpl. Jessy G. Pollard and Spc. Tyler R. Seideman.
Hawaii-based soldier laid to rest
The Associated Press
POWAY, Calif. — Since he was a child, Staff Sgt. Jason L. Paton knew he wanted to make a career in the military. He joined the Civil Air Patrol as a youngster, signed up for the Army right out of high school and planned to re-enlist after his current tour in Iraq to become an Army Ranger training officer.
Paton, 25, was three weeks from coming home when he was killed Aug. 22 along with 13 other soldiers in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Multaka, Iraq, north of Baghdad.
Paton, of Poway, was assigned to the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, in Hawaii.
He had completed a tour of duty in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. He was on his second deployment to Iraq and was to have come home in July, but the tour was extended as part of the troop surge ordered by President Bush.
A 2000 graduate of Poway High School, Paton and his fiancee, Nikki Palmer, were to marry in November. Palmer was a UC San Diego softball player, and Paton proposed to her at home plate after a game in March while he was home on leave.
Family members and Palmer remembered Paton as a devoted soldier who always looked out for others.
“He cared the world about other people,” his father Robert said. “He’d go out of his way to help anybody — and that’s reflected both in his personal life and his military life.”
His family said Paton was an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed surfing, water skiing and riding dirt bikes in the desert.
Paton was buried Sept. 6 at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery on San Diego’s Point Loma.