April 18, 2002
While serving in Afghanistan, Army Staff Sergeant Brian Craig would call his family at least once a week, and sometimes more often if there were reports of American casualties.
“For the last couple months, the phone would ring early Saturday morning,” said Barbara Craig, his mother. “He couldn’t tell us where he was or exactly what he was doing. But he would check in just to say ‘I am fine.’ “
When Arthur and Barbara Craig of Houston heard that four U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in Kandahar as they dismantled confiscated rockets, they worried. Soon their fears were confirmed.
Barbara Craig was home alone on Monday when an Army car pulled up to the Craig residence in north Harris County and two military men got out.
She was just returning from taking her husband to the airport for a missionary trip to the Ukraine.
“I had just gotten home and there they were,” Barbara Craig said, bracing at the pain of receiving the news alone.
She called her husband, Arthur, and said their youngest son was among the dead. He returned home.
“He laid down his life not only for his friends, but for people he didn’t even know, the Afghan people,” said Arthur Craig, pastor of the Woodhaven Baptist Deaf Church in Spring Branch.
“Rather than using weapons of destruction, he was over there cleaning up the munitions left by past and present war. By doing that we are certain he saved the lives of many people – men, women and children,” Craig told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday.
Brian Craig, 27, joined the Army in 1993, weeks after he graduated from Klein Forest High School.
The soldier’s father was stationed in Thailand with the Air Force during the Vietnam War and was proud to see his son join the Army.
“We encouraged him to go to college but he was very determined to enlist,” he said. “He felt that was what God was calling him to do, and we gave him complete support.”
04/17/2002
Army Staff Sergeant Brian Craig told his mother in a phone call from Afghanistan on Saturday that he wouldn’t be coming home on the date he mentioned in a letter he had just sent home.
“He said whatever date he had written in his letter was not going to be a good date,” Craig’s mother, Barbara, said Tuesday after learning her son had died along with three other U.S. soldiers when a rocket they were working on exploded in Afghanistan.
Military officials delivered news of Craig’s death to his parents’ Houston home
Monday afternoon.
It was much different news than what Barbara Craig still expects to read in the letter her son sent, which hadn’t yet arrived at the family’s home Tuesday.
Craig has learned since her son’s death that he was talking with his sister about a way to surprise his parents when he returned home from Afghanistan, knowing both his mother and father wanted to be at the airport awaiting his battalion’s arrival in San Diego, California.
“He was using (his sister) as a go-between,” Craig said. “He was going to try and surprise us and come home to Houston.
“We were looking so forward to him coming home.”
The 27-year-old died while handling large-caliber rockets that had been confiscated from former Taliban ammunition dumps. A fifth soldier suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.
Army spokesman David Kuhns said Craig was part of a small army detachment out of Fort Lewis, Washington, which was housed at a Navy base in San Diego.
He said plans for a memorial service in San Diego this week were being discussed Tuesday.
“What has helped comfort us over these last few days is at least he was doing what he wanted to do and he enjoyed doing it,” Barbara Craig said of her son. “My heart just goes out to the other families because there are three other families that are hurting just like ours.”
Also killed were two soldiers from Kansas: Staff Sergeant Justin Galewski, 28 and
Sergeant Jamie Maugans, 27; and a fourth from Colorado, Sergeant First Class Daniel Romero, 30.
“They went around and picked up the old bombs and rockets and took them to a safe place to detonate them so they would not harm other people,” the mother said. “His family is really proud of him and the job he did.
“He was our hero.”
Brian Craig’s parents had planned to meet him in San Diego when he returned from Afghanistan, but he wanted to surprise them by showing up on their Houston doorstep.
On Monday, the knock at the family’s door came from military officials, who brought word that the Army Staff Sergeant was one of four American soldiers killed in an accidental explosion in Kandahar.
Craig had been talking to his sister about keeping his parents from finding out when his battalion would arrive in San Diego so they wouldn’t go there to meet him.
“He was using her as a go-between,” said Craig’s mother, Barbara. “He was
going to try and surprise us and come home to Houston. We were looking so
forward to him coming home.”
Craig, 27, died handling large caliber rockets confiscated from former Taliban ammunition dumps. Also killed were Staff Sergeant Justin J. Galewski, 28, of Olathe, Kansas; Sergeant Jamie O. Maugans, 27, of Derby, Kansas; and Sergeant First Class Daniel A. Romero, 30, of Longmont, Colorado.
The accident is under investigation.
Craig, Galewski, and Maugans were part of 710th Ordnance Company, a small unit on a Navy submarine base in San Diego. Galwwski’s wife, Christine, heard from her husband a few days ago.
“I feel very fortunate to have been with him,” she told ABC’s “Good Morning America,” which had been following her for a story about military wives. “I want him to know that I’m going to be OK.”
She said the loss had not sunk in.
“I just keep feeling they’re going to come through the door and say ‘Sorry, we got the wrong one,”‘ she said. The couple had two children.
Romero was with the 19th Special Forces Group based at Pueblo, Colorado. His wife and parents described him as sensitive, spiritual and a dedicated soldier.
“He was a very loving son. He loved his family and his wife,” said his father, Michael Romero.
The family last talked to Romero on Sunday. They knew he was helping to fight the war on terrorism, but they didn’t know he was in Afghanistan, his father said.
“This tragedy brings home … the sacrifice that brave Americans make daily to defend our freedom,” said Colorado Governor Bill Owens, who ordered flags at state buildings to be flown at half-staff Tuesday.
Maugans’ family said he felt he was saving other soldiers as well as civilians. They last heard from him in an e-mail on Easter, when he said he’d be home in a month.
“He was hoping to go out and have a beer or two with me – I was looking forward to that,” said his father, Bryce.
His grandmother, Shirley Maugans of Wichita, said the family had been looking forward to his return because he’d been overseas since November.
“He was a gentle man, from the time he was born,” she said. “He was very sweet and kind.”
The soldiers’ bodies arrived Tuesday at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany en route to the United States.
An honor guard and chaplains stood at attention as the C-17 cargo plane carrying the coffins taxied on the runway. Members of the honor guard saluted as others carried the flag-draped coffins down the plane’s ramp to waiting hearses.
CRAIG, BRIAN THOMAS
SSG US ARMY
- VETERAN SERVICE DATES: 08/26/1993 – 04/15/2002
- DATE OF BIRTH: 04/02/1975
- DATE OF DEATH: 04/15/2002
- DATE OF INTERMENT: 05/22/2002
- BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 7756
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
CRAIG, BRIAN THOMAS
SSG US ARMY
- VETERAN SERVICE DATES: 08/26/1993 – 04/15/2002
- DATE OF BIRTH: 04/02/1975
- DATE OF DEATH: 04/15/2002
- DATE OF INTERMENT: 05/24/2002
- BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 7757
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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