Army Staff Sgt. Juan F. Campos

Died June 1, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

27, of McAllen, Texas; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany; died June 1 at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, of wounds sustained when his unit was attacked by insurgents using improvised explosive devices and rocket propelled grenades May 14 in Baghdad.

* * * * *

Valley soldier dies of wounds from Baghdad attack

The Associated Press

McALLEN, Texas — A 27-year-old soldier from McAllen has died of wounds suffered in an insurgent attack on his unit in Baghdad, the Pentagon said June 8.

Army Staff Sgt. Juan F. Campos died June 1 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.

The Defense Department said Campos was wounded when his unit was attacked May 14 with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades.

He was serving with the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, based at Schweinfurt, Germany.

* * * * *

Family, friends remember soldier killed in Iraq

The Associated Press

Army Staff Sgt. Juan F. Campos and his future bride, Jamie Drury-Campos, met in 2000 at a bar and grill. She was a waitress and, he told her, his dream girl.

But he was too shy to act on his crush and she had to approach him on the dance floor. Her mother, Birdie McVaney, liked him immediately.

“‘You’re son-in-law material,’ I said, the first day,” she remembered.

Campos, 27, of McAllen, Texas, died June 1 at Brooke Army Medical Center of wounds sustained May 14 in Baghdad. He was a 1997 high school graduate and was assigned to Schweinfurt, Germany.

Campos died more than two weeks after a roadside bomb attack that left him burned on over 80 percent of his body. He was transported back to Texas on May 16, where doctors discovered his kidneys were damaged and that he needed a respirator to breathe.

Campos “was an exceptional leader who led from the front,” said Brig. Gen. P. K. Keen.

After the injury, his widow learned she was pregnant with the couple’s second child. “He knew,” said Lydia Caballero, a spokeswoman for a veteran’s group. “She was able to tell him before he died.”

Campos is also survived by an 8-year-old son, Andre.