AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — A memorial service was held Friday on base for an airman killed July 5 in a motorcycle accident.
Staff Sgt. James Cook, assigned to the 31st Maintenance Squadron, died along a stretch of road commonly referred to on base as the mountain highway. It’s a winding road that hugs the Dolomite mountains from Sacile to Montereale.
A press release issued by the 31st Fighter Wing public affairs office said the cause of the accident is under investigation.
Cook is survived by his wife, Susan; a son, Christopher; a daughter, Isabella; his parents and a sister. His daughter was born two days after the accident.
GI’s wife found dead at Garrison MannheimA soldier’s wife was pronounced dead early Saturday in her quarters at Benjamin Franklin Village on U.S. Garrison Mannheim.
The woman, who was not identified, was pronounced dead by German emergency medical personnel, according to a statement issued Sunday by Christine Gebhard, spokeswoman for the garrison.
According to the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper, the 38-year- old woman had been stabbed. Army public affairs in Mannheim declined to say whether the death was of natural causes or homicide, or if anyone was in custody.
“There are currently no charges filed,” a spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. The woman’s husband, a soldier, is “in the care of the soldier’s unit of assignment.”
The death is under investigation by U.S. military and German authorities.
Schweinfurt-based soldier dies in BaghdadA 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division soldier died July 11 in a non-combat-related incident in Adhamiyah, an eastern part of Baghdad, the Defense Department announced in a press release.
First Sgt. Jeffrey R. McKinney, 40, was assigned to the Schweinfurt, Germany-based 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment.
“He used to be a platoon sergeant in my company,” said Capt. Jacob White, the battalion’s rear detachment commander. “He was a great guy, really competent, tactically sound, a good leader of soldiers.
“I thought he was great guy.”
White said he did not have further information on McKinney’s death, but that it was being investigated.
White said that McKinney was survived by a wife, a teenage son and infant son, and that a memorial service in Schweinfurt had not yet been scheduled.
