Army Staff Sgt. Zachary R. Wobler

Died February 6, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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24, of Ottowa, Ohio; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.; killed Feb. 6 when his dismounted patrol encountered enemy forces using small-arms fire in Mosul, Iraq.

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Soldier killed in Iraq during second tour of duty

Associated Press

GATE CITY, Va. — A Scott County woman is mourning the death of her son who was killed in Iraq on Feb. 6 during his second tour of duty.

Staff Sgt. Zachary Wobler, 24, was killed by insurgent fire in Mosul, Iraq, on Sunday morning. He was a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division based in Fort Bragg, N.C.

Jeanette Poston said her son still called the southwest Virginia town of Snowflake home, although he had moved with his father to Ottawa, Ohio, before entering high school.

“He told people he was a southern boy from Virginia,” Poston said.

While the Army provided no official details on the circumstances surrounding Wobler’s death, the soldiers under his command told the family he was shot three times during a firefight with insurgents. Medics had to sedate an angry Wobler, who demanded he be taken back to his troops while he was being transported for surgery.

“He was just so mad they had got him,” Wobler’s stepfather, Tim Poston, said. “He was wanting to get back out there. Now, if the U.S. doesn’t understand the kind of men they’ve got, that’s it right there. That’s a hero.”

Wobler had served an 11-month tour of duty in 2003, when he injured his knee. Jeanette Poston said doctors told her son in November he needed knee surgery, but he refused, opting instead to return to Iraq the next month.

Wobler had joined the Army full time in 2000 after serving in Ohio’s National Guard. In 2002, he was selected as the 82nd Airborne’s paratrooper of the year.

In an interview in May 2002 with The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer about his selection, Zachary Wobler discussed his feelings about deployment.

“Nobody knows ‘til it comes down to it whether you are ready or not,” he said.

He attributed his success in the Army to his father.

“My father was big on honesty when I was young,” he said in 2002. “That’s one thing that was drilled into our family when I was young.”

Wobler had been legally separated from his wife, Corissa, for about two years. They have a 3-year-old daughter, Trinity.

His family said Wobler will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.