The Pentagon has identified three sergeants from the Bamberg, Germany-based 630th Military Police Company who were killed in Iraq last week.
Sgt. Brandon A. Parr, Sgt. Michael C. Peek and Sgt. Ashly L. Moyer died March 3 in Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle, a Department of Defense press release stated.
“He felt it was something he had to do — 9/11 was his motivation to join the Army,” Parr’s wife, Shannah, was quoted as saying in an NBC affiliate KLH report in Salt Lake City. Parr, 25, was from West Valley, Utah. He also is survived by a 4-year-old son, Nicholas, and mother, Teota Dangel. Parr was on his second Iraq deployment.
Peek, a 23-year-old from Chesapeake, Va., was set to get married in a month, according to his MySpace page.
“The big number is [one] … the number of months I have till I say, ‘I do’ for the first and last time of my life,” Peek wrote, following later with, “Right now I have to fight early mornings and late nights here in Iraq, but that is a little price to pay to be part of the best country in the world.”
Moyer’s family told WCAU-TV in Philadelphia that she also had wedding plans, and that upon her return from Iraq in June, her boyfriend — who is serving there still — was planning to propose.
WCAU also reported that Moyer, 21, had guarded detainees in Guantanamo Bay before deploying to Iraq and was to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery at 3 p.m. Friday.
A memorial ceremony for the sergeants will be held at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Warner Barracks Chapel, a spokesman for the 793rd Military Police Battalion said.
