U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 0031-08
January 11, 2008
DoD Identifies Army Casualties
The Department of Defense announced today the death of six soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
They died January 9, 2008, in Sinsil, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated during combat operations. They were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Vilseck, Germany.
Killed were:
Specialist Todd E. Davis, 22, of Raymore, Missouri
Staff Sergeant Jonathan K. Dozier, 30, of Chesapeake, Virginia
Staff Sergeant Sean M. Gaul, 29, of Reno, Nevada
Sergeant Zachary W. McBride, 20, of Bend, Oregon
Sergeant First Class Matthew I. Pionk, 30, of Superior, Wisconsin
Sergeant Christopher A. Sanders, 22, of Roswell, New Mexico
10 January 2008:
Wednesday, Chesapeake native Staff Sergeant Jonathan Dozier died in Iraq.
Although the Army has not been able to tell his family much, the Doziers believe he was one of the six soldiers killed in a blast form a bomb hidden inside a house.
“He didn’t want to die for nothing, and he said that in a letter he wrote to me right after he got there,” recalled Dozier’s father, Carl.
Dozier came from a family with a history of service. His relatives fought in the Civil War, both World Wars and Desert Storm.
“From a baby, I guess I inculcated in him that desire,” said his father.
Dozier followed the path that led him to become another generation of Doziers in the military.
“Laying in the swamps of Louisiana for training. How do you enjoy rolling in the swamps with everything, you know, with everything, not know what was gonna get you,” Dozier’s stepmother, Jean, asked.
Dozier’s path continued, taking the 30-year-old to Iraq.
Dozier was among troops who swept through homes in the terrorist-ridden area making sure they weren’t covers for insurgents or their weapons.
Phone calls, visits from friends, medals and pictures are things left from a live lived and lost, a life that for Dozier’s family was as extraordinary as they come.
“He believed in something bigger than himself is what he said, ‘I believe in something bigger than myself,” and, you know I couldn’t ask for a son to understand life better than that,” said his father.
Dozier’s body will be flown back to the United States. A local service will be held in Hampton Roads, and Dozier will be laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.
11 January 2008:
Just a week after being promoted to Army Staff Sergeant, a Chesapeake man whose family has a tradition of military service extending through four generations has died in combat in Iraq, his father said.
Jonathan Kilian Dozier, 30, was killed during operations in the Baqouba area of Diyala province in central Iraq, Carl Dozier said Thursday.
“The details are still coming in,” he said. “I don’t really have anything hard other than that he was engaged in hostile activity in ongoing operations in the area.”
Dozier said the Army told him his son was killed about 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Baghdad time.
The Pentagon has yet to announce his death but did report that six soldiers were killed Wednesday in Diyala when insurgents detonated a large bomb hidden inside a house. Those deaths came as the military launched its third offensive in a year to dislodge Sunni militants north of Baghdad.
Dozier said he knew his son, a sniper team leader, had been sent on missions into buildings “looking for caches of munitions and arms, looking for al-Qaida members.”
He last spoke with him by phone Monday. “He was doing fine,” he said. “You know, they can’t say but so much, but based on what he could tell me, I know that they were getting ready to go after the bad guys.”
Dozier said his son e-mailed him a photograph, taken on Christmas Day after his unit had a holiday meal and just minutes before he was to go on a mission. In the image, Jonathan Dozier is weighed down with gear as he stands in front of the American and Virginia flags his father had sent him.
An Army notification team came to the Dozier home Wednesday afternoon to deliver the news.
“There’s a certain degree of shock that you don’t ever expect it,” Carl Dozier said. “But he was a warrior and he knew the consequences and I understood the consequences because of my time” in the service, he said.
His son “had the warrior ethos,” Dozier said. “He looked after his buddies. They looked after him.”
The Dozier family’s tradition of military service extends back to the Civil War.
Carl Dozier said he joined the Army in 1971 and, later, the Virginia National Guard. He volunteered to serve in the Middle East during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991. After 28 years of service, he left the military in 1999 as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Despite knowing the risks, “you are never prepared for the notification team coming to your door,” Dozier said.
Dozier blasted national political leaders who he said have not supported the troops and the war effort. “They put their own political agendas ahead of the good of this nation and they are the ones that are responsible for the deaths of every dang young man and woman that dies there, because they’ve given aid and comfort to the enemy. ”
Dozier, 61, retired after serving 35 years as a public school teacher and administrator, during which time he also served in the National Guard.
“Selfless service is something we don’t understand anymore,” he said. “Jon did make a sacrifice for the greater good. He didn’t have to stay in, but he felt like he had to.” His son had re-enlisted in November, he said. “He felt the responsibility.”
Jon Dozier joined the Army in 1997. Then he went to Middle Tennessee State University before re-enlisting in 2005.
Carl Dozier said he did all he could to stay in touch with his son. “I spent 10 days with him in Germany in June before they deployed in August,” he said. “He was home in July, and we spent two weeks together.”
Otherwise, there were “e-mails, MySpace, telephone calls – we were in as close contact as anybody can be, separated by war.”
In one letter, Jon Dozier told his father: “I am a loyal American soldier. I believe in things larger than myself and making sacrifices for the greater good.”
He was, his father said, “a good man.”
January 11, 2008
When Army Staff Sergeant Jonathan Kilian Dozier first arrived in Iraq last year, he sat down to pen what would be the only handwritten letter he’d send home to his father in Chesapeake.
“It was just news, telling me what was going on,” Carl Dozier, a retired Army National Guard lieutenant colonel, said in a phone interview Friday.
But he wrote it, articulating his feelings with his own hand. He touched it. Mailed it.
“He told me things were getting ready to start happening,” Carl said. “He told me he was getting ready to start running missions, that he was confident in his guys, that he had not finalized his will.”
Dozier would send countless more e-mails to his family before Wednesday, when the 30-year-old Chesapeake native was killed during combat operations in the Diyala province of central Iraq.
Staff Sergeant Dozier enlisted in the Army in 1997 and deployed to Iraq August 16, marking his first trip to the war zone.
While the Pentagon has not officially released information about Dozier’s death, his family believes he was one of the six soldiers killed in Diyala when a bomb exploded in a house booby trapped by insurgents.
“I talked to Jon Monday,” Carl Dozier said. “He had called his sister (in Chesapeake) and his mother (in Portsmouth) on Saturday. We spent about 22 minutes on the phone. He said they were getting ready to go out and I wouldn’t hear from him in a while and he would call when he got back. He sounded good.”
When a car pulled up to Carl’s house Wednesday and uniformed soldiers from Fort Eustis got out, Carl said he knew something was wrong.
“I knew. I went to the door. Opened it.”
“How bad is it?” he asked them. “As soon as they started saying ‘the Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you,’ I knew how bad it was.”
Carl doesn’t blame God or “his country” for the traumatic loss of a child.
“It’s some of the politicians … who put their own personal agendas ahead of the nation who have divided us. They are traitors to this country. They care about their own futures and their own political parties and don’t care about the troops.”
Staff Sergeant Dozier told his father that he was prepared to die.
“But he said, ‘I don’t want to die for nothing,’ ” Carl said.
Before deploying, Staff Sgt. Dozier asked Carl, “Is it weird to really want to do this?”
“No,” Carl said he told him. “This is what you’re trained to do.”
Working in the military was something his son wanted to continue to do.
Staff Sergeant Dozier’s plan when he returned from Iraq was to get into Special Forces training.
“He had career goals, was planning on staying in the Army,” Carl said. “He just re-upped (to stay in the Army) for an additional 18 months. He wanted to study Farsi. He was thinking about the future. And his future was looking good.
“You never plan on having to bury your son,” Carl added. “I knew there was always the risk because of the profession he was in. He wasn’t a wrench turner or a pencil pusher. He was the tip of the spear.”
Following a small memorial ceremony that will be held in Hampton Roads, Staff Sergeant Dozier will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
“He was a warrior and I want him …” Carl said, his voice trailing off momentarily as he choked back tears, “buried where the warriors are buried.”
January 16, 2008
A memorial service for a Chesapeake man killed in Iraq a week ago will be held Saturday at the Norfolk Naval Station, his family has announced.
Army Staff Sergeant Jonathan Kilian Dozier, 30, was among a half dozen soldiers killed January 9, 2008, during combat operations in Sinsil, Iraq, the Pentagon has said.
They died when an improvised explosive device went off inside a building they had entered, intending to secure it, during an offensive to clear Sunni insurgents from the northern Diyala River Valley, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
The structure had been checked out and cleared of hazards about two weeks earlier, Army commanders said. But insurgents apparently had sneaked back into it afterwards and rigged it with explosives.
The soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Division based in Vilseck, Germany, which is attached for the Diyala operation to the Second Infantry Division, the Pentagon said.
A memorial service will be conducted at 11:30 a.m., Saturday, at the David Adams Memorial Chapel at the Norfolk Naval Station. Guests should enter through Gate 2 and present a drivers license for identification.
A reception will follow the service at the Vista Point Club, Naval Station Norfolk.
The family will receive friends from 6 to 9 p.m., Friday at the Great Bridge Chapel of Oman Funeral Home & Crematory, 653 Cedar Road in Chesapeake.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Saving Grace Memorial Fund, for the future needs of Dozier’s 1-year-old daughter, Emma Grace Dozier, c/o any branch of the Bank of Hampton Roads or by mail to 239 S. Battlefield Blvd., Chesapeake, Virginia. 23322.
Saying Farewell to ‘a Warrior’
Va. Native Killed in Iraq Is Remembered as a Leader
By Mark Berman
Courtesy of the Washington Post
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The military was in Jonathan Dozier’s blood. His great-grandfather fought in the Civil War, his grandfather served during World War II, and his father spent 28 years in the service. Carl Dozier last spoke with his son two days before he was killed in Sinsil, Iraq, this month.
“He was doing fine,” Dozier, of Chesapeake, Virginia, told the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. “You know, they can’t say but so much, but based on what he could tell me, I know that they were getting ready to go after the bad guys.”
Staff Sergeant Jonathan K. Dozier, 30, of Rutherford, Tennessee, was among six soldiers killed January 9, 2008, by a makeshift bomb during combat operations, according to the Department of Defense. Yesterday, more than 130 mourners, bundled up against the cold, gathered to say goodbye to Dozier as he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the 402nd member of the military killed in Iraq to be buried at Arlington.
Folded flags were touched to the container holding Dozier’s remains for a long moment before being given to his father and his mother, Martha Cabe.
Dozier, a Virginia native, entered the military in 1997, his father told the Virginian-Pilot. He studied international affairs at Middle Tennessee State University before reenlisting in April 2005 as an infantryman at Fort Benning, Georgia. He attended Virginia Commonwealth University before transferring to Middle Tennessee State, according to the Jackson (Tennessee) Sun.
His military service took him to Georgia, North Carolina, Washington state and then, in September 2006, to Germany. He entered a scout platoon and was deployed to Iraq on August 11, 2007.
“He was a warrior,” Carl Dozier told the Sun. “He looked after the welfare of his soldiers. He was a brave soldier. He chose to be in the sniper recon. He knew the dangers that were inherent.”
His parents described him as a man with great looks and great intellect. Carl Dozier said his curly-haired son had the looks, strength and courage of Samson; his mother said Dozier could go on “Jeopardy” and answer every question.
Dozier’s military honors include the Bronze Star, Purple Heart and National Defense Service Medal.
He had a daughter, Emma.
“He had a vibrant life,” Carl Dozier told the Sun.
At a memorial service last Wednesday in Vilseck, Captain David A. Dykema, commander of the rear detachment of his squadron, delivered a eulogy in which he called Dozier “a natural leader of men, and not afraid to shoulder responsibility.”
DOZIER, JONATHAN KILLIAN
- SFC US ARMY
- DATE OF BIRTH: 09/30/1977
- DATE OF DEATH: 01/09/2008
- BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 8727
- ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
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Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.
Reviewed by: Michael Howard