NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense
No. 1028-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 13, 2006
DoD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Captain Shane T. Adcock, 27, of Mechanicsville, Virginia, died on October 11, 2006, in Hawijah, Iraq, from injuries suffered from enemy grenade fire. Adcock was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
Courtesy of the Honolulu Advertiser
14 October 2006
Schofield Captain, 27, killed in Iraq hot spot
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
An Army Captain from Mechanicsville, Virginia, is the fifth Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, soldier to be killed in or near Hawija, a farming city in northern Iraq that has long been a hotbed of Sunni resistance to U.S. forces.
A grenade landed in Captain Shane T. Adcock’s Humvee on Wednesday, killing the 27-year-old married man, family said yesterday. Another soldier received a concussion, and a third received shrapnel injuries and is in Germany.
“It’s hard,” said Vera Adcock, the soldier’s mother. “It’s something that you don’t ever think that you are going to go through with your child — that you are going to see your child go off to war and not have him come back.”
One of the comforts the family takes, as hard as the loss is, is that Shane Adcock was a Christian, his mother said. “He knew the Lord, and it had to be his time,” she said from Virginia. “The grenade went into the Humvee, but he was the one that died. The others were able to walk away.”
A sixth American killed in Hawija was a DynCorp International contractor from Maine, who was struck by a sniper’s bullet on September 17, 2006, Darrell Wetherbee, 46, was an Iraqi police liaison officer and part of a State Department team working with Hawai’i troops.
More than 7,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers have been serving in a Pennsylvania-sized swath of northern Iraq for about two months now, but all of their losses have been in or near Hawija.
Two other soldiers killed elsewhere were from Mainland units, but were attached to Schofield’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade.
Schofield’s 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Wolfhounds fought the 25th Infantry Division’s biggest firefight in 2004 in Hawija, a city of about 80,000 some 30 miles southwest of Kirkuk. In a daylong firefight, about 40 enemy fighters were killed and 60 were wounded. There were no Hawai’i fatalities.
The region, which the battalion commander for the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry there now says is “98 percent Sunni,” has been plagued by sniper and other hit-and-run attacks on U.S. forces since 2004.
Sunnis dominated Saddam Hussein’s ruling Baath Party, and were forced out of their jobs after the U.S.-led invasion in March of 2003.
A REGION IN TURMOIL
A recent Marine security report painted a bleak picture of the insurgency in the adjacent and heavily Sunni Anbar province, with the classified assessment finding prospects dim for securing the western region of the country, the Washington Post reported.
“We’re in a recruiting war with the insurgency,” Brigadier General Robert Neller, the Deputy Commander in western Iraq, said in August.
Wetherbee, the police trainer, had called his wife from Iraq and said he might not come home alive, she had told the Sun Journal newspaper in Maine.
He had been a contract peacekeeper in Kosovo, but in the Hawija area found turmoil, violence and snipers, Sheila Wetherbee had said.
Lieutenant Colonel Drew Meyerowich, the Hawaii-based battalion commander for about 1,000 U.S. troops — most of whom are from Schofield — acknowledges that Hawija “is probably one of the rougher neighborhoods” in his operating area at the tip of the Sunni Triangle.
While Sunnis were part of the Baath Party, “there is reconciliation going on in this area,” Meyerowich said recently by phone. “They are sitting at the table (with us) trying to solve their own problems.”
Since Schofield soldiers arrived, the three major tribal leaders in the region have met with U.S. forces to chart a new way ahead, he said.
“All three grand sheiks sat down together at a table with me to discuss how they are going to restructure and get things done so that they are governing themselves and they are protecting themselves,” he said.
Soldiers from previous units lamented the lack of motivation and allegiance in the fledgling Iraqi army in the Hawija area. But Meyerowich said the army’s ranks are now being drawn locally, noting that fear that Kurds from the north — a group at odds with the Arabs — might somehow replace them is one of the motivators.
“I think there have been significant results,” Meyerowich said, “but I think it’s a slow process where you are dealing with a culture that’s thousands of years old.”
NEWLY WED TO HILO GAL
Shane Adcock, a fire support officer who was with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Field Artillery, didn’t tell his mother where he was, and said only he was north of Baghdad, she said. Previously, he had deployed to Afghanistan with the 25th Division and seemed more willing to talk about that, she said.
His grandfather had served 30 years in the Navy and Adcock grew up in Norfolk knowing all the military aircraft in the area. He was commissioned in 2003.
“At the time that he decided to go into the Army, the Army was not doing the yearlong deployments,” his mother said. “We talked about doing the Navy or other branches of the service, and he said, ‘Well, they deploy for over six months at a time,’ and with the Army, we weren’t involved in the war on terror like we are now.”
Shane loved the outdoors, surfing in Hawai’i, and in June married his girlfriend Jennifer Skeele, who is from Hilo, but whom he met in Virginia, Vera Adcock said.
As neighbors and friends streamed to her home yesterday to offer support and condolences, Vera Adcock said she has mixed emotions about Iraq. Her son will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full honors.
“At the beginning of all of this, I understood what we were doing (in Iraq). I knew why we were there,” she said. “I’m not so sure anymore I understand that.”
We regret to announce the death of Captain Shane Timothy Adcock, a 2003 Longwood University graduate who was a U.S. Army field artillery officer. He was killed Wednesday, October 11, 2006, in Hawijah, Kirkuk Province, Iraq, when a grenade struck the side of his Humvee.
He was the first graduate of Longwood’s ROTC program to be killed in hostilities in Iraq or Afghanistan. He had been serving with the 25th Infantry Division, stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Adcock was deployed to Iraq in July and was promoted from First Lieutenant to Captain during his tour. Shortly after graduating from Longwood with a B.A. in communication studies, he served in Afghanistan for more than a year.
Burial will be Friday, October 27, in Arlington National Cemetery.
U.S. Army Captain Shane Timothy Adcock, 27, of Mechanicsville, died Wednesday, October 11, 2006, in Hawijah, Iraq.
He is survived by his wife, Jennifer May Adcock; his parents, Maris and Vera Adcock; sister, Shannon Hathaway and her husband Michael; grandparents, John and Ruth Adcock; mother and father-in-law, Sherron and David Skeele; brothers-in-law, Mark Skeele, Matthew Skeele and his wife Kristine; nieces and nephews, Isaac and Isaiah Hathaway, Ka’eo, Keala, Kala’i and Kahiau Skeele.
Shane was a 1997 graduate of Atlee High School and a 2003 graduate of Longwood University. He was an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of the Arrow.
The family will receive friends from 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Atlee Chapel, Woody Funeral Home, 9271 Shady Grove Road, Mechanicsville. The funeral will be held at 5 p.m. Thursday at Grove Avenue Baptist Church, followed by interment with full military honors at 3:45 p.m. Friday in Arlington National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, please make contributions to Words of Victory c/o Grove Avenue Baptist Church, 8701 Ridge Road, Richmond, VA 23229, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation or the Hanover Education Foundation for a scholarship in Shane’s name.
Officer, Soldier Shared Passions
Two Slain in Iraq Loved Family, Country and the Military, Mourners Say
By Arianne Aryanpur
Courtesy of the Washington Post
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Army Corporal Carl Johnson, 21, and Army Captain Shane Adcock, 27, died miles apart in Iraq. Johnson died October 7, 2006, of injuries suffered when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Mosul. Adcock died October 11, 2006, in an enemy grenade attack in Hawijah.
They shared a deep love of family, country and the military.
Yesterday, the men were interred within hours of each other under an overcast sky at Arlington National Cemetery. They were the 268th and 269th people killed in the Iraq war to be buried there.
Shortly before noon, mourners walked through the soggy grass to grave site No. 8429 to honor Johnson, who was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, in Fort Lewis, Washington.
Johnson played football and was a member of the service club at Simon Gratz High School in his home town of Philadelphia.
“He was always smiling and willing to help people,” said Rich Kozlowski, his football coach.
Johnson enlisted in the military in 2004 and was quickly promoted to corporal, said Erin Benson, a military spokeswoman. Only soldiers who exhibit unusual leadership and promise are selected for the position, she said.
Friends said Johnson was skilled at driving the Army’s 23-ton combat vehicles on the crowded streets of Mosul. His battalion commander often singled him out because of his driving ability, and he was being considered for another promotion, friends said.
“He is remembered by his brothers-in-arms as a soldier who took great pride in his profession and strove to do well at all the tasks assigned to him,” Major Robert J. Bennett said at Johnson’s memorial service at Fort Lewis this month.
“He is also remembered as a confidant and friend to his family and his fellow legionnaires,” he said.
Johnson is survived by his mother, Peggy Crocker, and his sister, Tisha Johnson, according to the military.
Later yesterday, mourners gathered one grave site over to pay respects to Adcock, of Mechanicsville, Virginia. Hundreds of people followed the procession to Adcock’s grave in the rain. Many mourners huddled under an awning and umbrellas as a chaplain spoke.
Adcock was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
His parents said it came as no surprise when he joined the military after graduating in 2003 from Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Adcock’s grandfather was a Navy veteran who shared military stories with him and took him to visit the naval base in Norfolk.
Adcock was an adventure seeker and enjoyed rock climbing, hiking, surfing and kayaking, family members said.
“He used to always tell me, ‘You know Mom, I gotta live life on the edge,’ ” Vera Adcock said. “And in all of it, he kept God at the center of his attention.”
His first deployment was to Afghanistan in 2004. At a welcome-home party in the middle of that deployment, he met the woman who would become his wife, Jennifer Skeele, a doctoral student in physical therapy at Duke University. When he returned to Afghanistan, they kept in touch via e-mail and talked on the phone nearly every day.
“He was the most upstanding, moral person you’ve ever met,” Skeele said. “He was caring and compassionate. When he was in Afghanistan, he had more patience and joy in his life than people I know walking around every day in a free country. He was so calm and collected that it blew me away.”
They were married in Hawaii in June. Nearly two months later, he was deployed to Iraq.
Adcock loved the military and was planning to make a career of it. He also wanted to start a family, his wife said.
“I think it’s clear for all the soldiers that they love what they’re doing, but they just miss their loved ones,” she said. “It clarifies what we take for granted every day. He missed the simple things like waking up next to his wife. That’s all he wanted to do. . . . My heart goes out to these men. We have no concept of what they go through every day.”
A caison carrying the remains of Army Captain Shane Adcock of Mechanicville, Virignia,
makes its way through Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, October 27, 2006
Members of the U.S. Army honor guard walk with a caison carrying the remains of Army
Capain Shane Adcock of Mechanicville, Virginia, during burial services
in Arlington National Cemetery Friday, October 27, 2006.
Jennifer Adcock, second from right, wipes her face as an honor guard prepare to fold the flag on the
casket of her husband, Army Captain Shane Adcock of Mechanicville, Virginia, during burial services at Arlington
National Cemetery Friday, October 27, 2006
Army Major General James Kelly, left, talks with Jennifer Adcock after presenting her with the flag
from casket of her husband, Army Captain Shane Adcock of Mechanicville, Virginia, during
burial services in Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, October 27, 2006
ADCOCK, SHANE TIMOTHY
- CPT US ARMY
- DATE OF BIRTH: 05/24/1979
- DATE OF DEATH: 10/11/2006
- BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 8430
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.
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