John D. Linde – Staff Sergeant, United States Army

by

U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 1291-07
November 7, 2007

DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of four soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died November 5, 2007, in Tal Al-Dahab, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their Humvee during combat operations.

Killed were:

Staff Sergeant Carletta S. Davis, 34, of Anchorage, Alaska. She was assigned to the 10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York.

Staff Sergeant John D. Linde, 30, of New York, New York. He was assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York.

Sergeant Derek T. Stenroos, 24, of North Pole, Alaska. He was assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York.

Private First Class Adam J. Muller, 21, of Underhill, Vermont. He was assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, New York.

For more information related to this release, the media may contact the Fort Drum public affairs office at (315) 772-8286.

  • Army Staff Sgt. John D. Linde, November 5, 2007
  • Courtesy of The Star-Ledger November 08, 2007
  • Age: 30
  • Hometown: Born in Secaucus, grew up in Weehawken
  • Circumstances: Killed when a roadside bomb detonated near his convoy in Tal Al-Dahab near northern Kirkuk.

jdlinde-photo-01

A protector at heart is killed in Iraq

Bronze Star recipient was a native of Jersey
Thursday, November 08, 2007
BY MARK MUELLER

Staff Sergeant John D. Linde called home to his wife Saturday night. He would soon be off on a mission, and it was his custom, forged over two tours of duty in Iraq, to make sure his young family knew a thing or two.

The first was that he would be careful. Linde, a New Jersey native, had won a Bronze Star fighting off an RPG attack on a convoy during his first tour, in 2005 and 2006. He knew the dangers and how to minimize them.

The second was that he loved them and missed them.

“He was able to speak with his daughter,” Vilma Linde said, recounting the conversation. “We were able to tell each other we loved each other.”

On Monday, Staff Sergeant Linde was traveling in a convoy through the village of Tal Al-Dahab, near the northern city of Kirkuk, when a roadside bomb detonated nearby. He was one of four soldiers killed in the blast. He would have been 31 on Sunday.

Linde, a military policeman assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, New York, was the 86th service member with ties to New Jersey to die in Iraq.

Vilma Linde, 29, said her husband was born in Secaucus and grew up in Weehawken, where he was a standout wrestler, before moving to Union City in his junior year. The two met at Union Hill High School.

“He was my best friend,” the wife said. “He was my daughter’s best friend. They were buddies.”

Linde had a second young daughter from a previous relationship. The girl lives with her mother, Vilma Linde said.

In a telephone interview from Fort Drum, where Vilma Linde and the couple’s daughter, 8-year-old Victoria, live in base housing, the wife said her husband enjoyed his Army career and took seriously the responsibility of protecting the soldiers who served under him.

“He loved being there for his soldiers and just trying to do the most and best he could for them,” she said.

He also loved to laugh, Vilma Linde said, and always knew precisely what to say to get his wife and daughter giggling, even when they resisted.

“I think all the time about how funny he was,” she said. “He made me laugh all the time.”

John Linde enlisted in the Army in 1996, serving first with a military police company at Fort Carson, Colorado, according to a brief biography released by officials at Fort Drum last night.

In 2000, peacekeeping duty brought him to Bosnia, where he served for seven months. His first Iraq deployment came in August 2005, and Linde quickly saw the dangers of the country’s insurgency.

His wife said he was traveling in a convoy when rocket-propelled grenades came shrieking from the shadows. Vilma Linde said she did not know details of her husband’s response to the attack, but it was enough to earn him the Bronze Star. He was not seriously injured, suffering minor hearing loss, she said.

“He knew all about the dangers,” the wife said. “When he was deployed this second time, I knew he had the experience under his belt and that he was more aware of things. He knew what to look for.”

Linde returned to Iraq in September for a scheduled 16-month deployment. Vilma Linde said she is awaiting a formal report from the Army on the attack that killed her husband.

In the meantime, she has had to break the news of the death to Victoria.

“She’s trying to be tough because she was daddy’s little trouper,” Vilma Linde said. “In her heart, it makes her feel some sort of peace to know that daddy’s in heaven.”

In addition to his wife and daughters, Linde leaves his father, John W. Linde, a former Union City resident now living in McDonough, New York. Funeral arrangements were incomplete yesterday.

7 November 2007:

An Army sergeant who grew up in northern New Jersey was killed in Iraq when a roadside bomb detonated near his vehicle, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Staff Sergeant John D. Linde, 30, was one of four soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division who died Monday when their convoy was attacked near the village of Tal Al-Dahab, west of the northern city of Kirkuk.

Linde, who was on his second deployment to Iraq, was a member of a military police unit that provided security for top officers of the division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, his father, John Linde of McDonough, New York, told The Record of Bergen County.

“He was among some of the best of the best … the kind of soldier who stood out from the beginning,” the elder Linde told the newspaper.

John D. Linde enlisted in the Army in 1996 and had served in Bosnia-Herzegovina in addition to his tours in Iraq.

He was born in Secaucus, New Jersey, and attended school in Union City, graduating from Union Hill High School, where he was a member of the wrestling team.

He met his wife, Vilma, there and the couple had two daughters. Linde’s father, an Army veteran, said the family was living in upstate New York. He said his son aspired to be a law enforcement officer following his military career.

Linde was previously deployed to Iraq from August 2005 to July 2006, the Army said, and had earned a Bronze Star during his first tour. He began his second tour in September.

Army Staff Sergeant John Linde last talked to his wife on Saturday, November 3, 2007.

“He sounded like he missed home, missed the family,” said his wife, Vilma, according to newspaper reports. “He was able to speak with his daughter. We were able to tell each other we loved each other. Then, on Monday, they told me he was gone.”

Linde and three other military police officers from the 10th Mountain Division were killed Nov. 5 by a roadside bomb in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Al-Dahab. He was buried on Monday at Arlington National Cemetery.

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“He served to the point of death so that others could be free,” Chaplain (Maj.) Gary Studniewski told several hundred mourners, including Linde’s widow and daughters Victoria and Erica, on a gray, raw morning.

Linde was an outdoorsman who enjoyed hunting, fishing, and racing ATVs while growing up in New Jersey and New York.

“I just never considered myself any kind of a great father,” his dad told News10Now. “But other people tell me I must have been because he came out so good.”

Linde enlisted in the Army in 1996. He completed one tour in Iraq in which he received a Bronze Star for fighting off an attack on a convoy. A neighbor said Linde was not looking forward to his second tour.

“He said he was lucky the first time, to say the least,” the neighbor told the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. “I just wish his luck had held out the second time.”

Linde would have turned 31 on November 11, Veterans Day.

(Linde was the 397th Iraq casualty to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. At least the next three Arlington burials are private, so the 400th Iraq burial will be closed to the press.)

In Death as in Life, Service to Freedom

At Burial, Family and Friends Mourn Army Staff Sergeant Killed in Iraq
By Mark Berman
Courtesy of the Washington Post
Tuesday, November 20, 2007

On one side of the grave sat a wreath and a bouquet of flowers; on the other, the family of Army Staff Sergeant John D. Linde. In between was Linde’s final resting place, where he was buried yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Linde, 30, died November 5, 2007, in Tal Al-Dahab, Iraq. He was wounded when a makeshift explosive device detonated near his Humvee during combat, according to the Department of Defense.

ME/Linde

Two weeks later, more than 130 mourners piled out of nearly four dozen cars to honor Linde, following his flag-draped coffin to his grave site.

“He served even to the point of death so that others could be free,” said Major Gary Studniewski, a chaplain.

During the service, Linde’s friends and family stood as seven rifles cracked off three shots toward a sky blanketed with gray clouds. Folded flags were handed to his wife, Vilma C. Linde, and his father, John W. Linde. As a flag was handed to Vilma Linde, hands rose throughout the crowd, bringing tissues to faces. She accepted a tissue to wipe her face.

Although the Department of Defense listed Linde as being from New York, his wife told the New York Daily News that he was born in Secaucus, New Jersey. The two met at Union Hill High School in Union City, New Jersey, before marrying in April 1998.

“He was going to make the Army his career,” she told the Daily News. “So we tried to spend as much time together as we could. I wasn’t supposed to see him until August.”

He died alongside three other soldiers: Staff Sergeant Carletta S. Davis, 34, of Anchorage; Sergeant Derek T. Stenroos, 24, of North Pole, Alaska; and Private First Class Adam J. Muller, 21, of Underhill, Vermont.

Linde, Stenroos and Muller were assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), based at Fort Drum, New York. Davis was assigned to the 10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) at Fort Drum.

Linde is the 397th military member killed in Iraq to be buried at Arlington, and like many others, he was laid to rest in Section 60. He enlisted in the Army in October 1996 and was previously deployed in Iraq from August 2005 to July 2006. He also served in Bosnia from February to September 2000.

During his military career, he received awards and decorations including the Purple Heart, Bronze Star Medal and Army Commendation Medal.

“He was an avid outdoorsman,” his father told the Jersey Journal of Jersey City last week. He was a “real good husband and father, and he was obviously well liked. Literally hundreds of people have called me these last few days.”

He is also survived by daughters Victoria and Erica.

Arlington Burial Linde

jdlinde-funeral-services-photo-05General Michael Harrison presents a flag to Vilma Linde, widow, during the funeral for
Army Staff Sergeant John D. Linde at Arlington National Cemetery

Arlington Burial Linde

LINDE, JOHN D

  • SSG   US ARMY
  • DATE OF BIRTH: 11/11/1976
  • DATE OF DEATH: 11/05/2007
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 60  SITE 8722
  • ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

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