U.S. Department of Defense
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release
IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 998-10
October 30, 2010
DOD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Staff Sergeant Adam L. Dickmyer, 26, of Winston Salem, North Carolina, died October 28, 2010, near Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Family and friends mourning a Winston-Salem native killed in Afighanistan say they also want to celebrate the way he lived his life.
Staff Sergeant Adam L. Dickmyer, 26, was killed Thursday by an improvised explosive device while on foot patrol near Kandahar, according to the Department of Defense.
“I was in disbelief,” his father, David Dickmyer, of Winston-Salem, told WFMY News. “I just felt like I was robbed or something and was just shaking. It was very hard to believe. My one and only son.”
Family friend Lanette Holmes remembered Dickmyer, who was married, as a kind man.
“You just couldn’t meet him without being touched in some way,” she said. “He had a really good heart.”
The graduate of Carver High School in Winston-Salem always had his eyes on serving in the military, relatives said.
“He wanted to fight for his beliefs, and he wanted to make a difference,” Holmes said. “He did that, and we couldn’t want anymore for him.”
Dickmyer served with the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Along with his father, Dickmyer is survived by his wife Melinda Dickmyer, of Arlington, Va., and mother, Stephanie Dickmyer, of New Port Richey, Florida.
He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Click Here For A Tribute To Sergeant Dickmyer
Click Here To See Sergeant Dickmyer Change The Guard At The Tomb of The Unknowns
17 November 2010:
Army Staff Sergeant Adam L. Dickmyer, who grew up in Winston-Salem and graduated from Carver High School, was buried this morning at Arlington National Cemetery, where he had previously served for several years at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Dickmyer, 26, died October 28, 2010, near Kandahar, Afghanistan, when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.
After a private service in the chapel at Arlington, Dickmyer family members and other mourners were led to the gravesite behind a team of six black horses hitched to a black wagon that carried the soldier’s flag-wrapped coffin.
The service included a three-shot volley from what the military calls a “firing party,” a caisson, an escort team, a lone bugler’s playing of “Taps,” and the presentation of precisely folded flags to Dickmyer’s widow, Melinda Randall Dickmyer; his father, David Dickmyer; and his mother, Stephanie Dickmyer.
Also in the procession were sentinels from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where Dickmyer served as Commander of the Relief and Assistant Sergeant of the Guard. He also served as the Casket Team Leader for the Joint Services State Funeral Team.
Dickmyer was a sentinel at the tomb for more than three years until he went to Afghanistan in 2007 as a member of the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Ky.
At 3 p.m., sentinels who serve at the tomb will hold a wreath-laying ceremony in honor of Dickmyer to mark his service at the tomb.
Arlington Cemetery elite guards bury one of their own
Army Staff Sgt. Adam L. Dickmyer is laid to rest at Arlington
An Army staff sergeant from North Carolina who was killed in Afghanistan is laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
By T. Rees Shapiro
Courtesy of The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
At the funeral Wednesday morning for Army Staff Sergeant Adam L. Dickmyer, many of the soldiers standing by his grave wore a brightly polished silver badge on the right chest pocket of their crisp blue jackets. On their steely faces, the sun reflected the glint of tears.
The “sentinels,” as the guards of the Tomb of the Unknowns call themselves, had come to section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery to salute one of their own.
Dickmyer, 26, died October 28, 2010, near Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds caused by a makeshift bomb. He was the first sentinel killed in action in 43 years and the first to die in the fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq.
He was the 12th sentinel interred at Arlington and the third in the unit’s history to be killed in combat.
Dickmyer enlisted in the Army in 2003 shortly after graduating from Carver High School in Winston-Salem, Nprth Carolina, where he was a member of an ROTC drill team.
His family said he thrived on the unit’s military precision and discipline. Not long after beginning his military service, he joined the 3rd Infantry Regiment, the Army’s oldest active infantry unit.
The “Old Guard,” as it is known, allows only carefully selected soldiers into its ranks, and those who join must adhere to the most rigorous spit-and-polish standards in the Army.
As a tomb guard, Dickmyer was among the elite of the elite. To join the platoon – which stands watch at the monument every hour of every day, no matter the weather – soldiers have to pass a battery of tests. Only 20 percent of the applicants become sentinels.
The applicants must learn where certain people are buried in Arlington, including Staff Sergeant William R. Spates Jr., the first sentinel killed in action in 1965, who rests in section 48.
Once they pass the tests and serve on tomb guard duty for longer than nine months, they receive a coveted silver badge identifying them as sentinels. The badge shows an inverted wreath, a symbol of mourning, and the figures of Valor, Victory and Peace.
With a stiff posture and fluid stride, Dickmyer walked the mat in front of the tomb for hours on end – despite admitting to his family that his knees, ankles and feet ached from the duty.
“We take it one step further because we are so visible,” Dickmyer said in Robert M. Poole’s 2009 book “On Hallowed Ground: The story of Arlington National Cemetery.” “Thousands of people see us every day – more come here than go to the Jefferson Memorial – so we want to make the best possible impression. And we want the guys who sacrificed everything to know that they are still remembered, that someone still cares. That’s why we do it.”
Dickmyer rose through the ranks of the tomb guard and served as commander of the relief, leading a squad of sentinels on their daily duties. He later was promoted to assistant sergeant of the guard, the second-highest enlisted position in the platoon.
He was incredibly committed to his duties as a sentinel, said his wife, Melinda Randall Dickmyer, who noted that they spent several Thanksgivings and Christmases together at the tomb guard’s post at the cemetery, under the amphitheater.
They met one April night in 2004 at a bar in Georgetown, and “the following Sunday morning, he went to church with me. That’s how I knew he was a keeper,” Melinda Dickmyer said.
In 2007, Dickmyer became the casket team leader for the Joint Services State Funeral unit, and he was the leading pallbearer at the funeral for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).
A year ago, Dickmyer joined the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, and he deployed to Afghanistan in June.
Dickmyer’s decorations included the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart. In his honor, his wife placed a wreath in front the Tomb of the Unknowns on Wednesday afternoon.
Army Staff Sergeant. Adam L. Dickmyer during his burial service at Arlington National Cemetery
DICKMYER, ADAM LYNN
- SSG US ARMY
- AFGHANISTAN
- DATE OF BIRTH: 02/02/1984
- DATE OF DEATH: 10/28/2010
- BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 9396
- 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