The Department of Defense late Friday identified Staff Sgt. Tracy L. Melvin as the 1st Armored Division soldier killed Aug. 6 in Iraq.
Melvin, a 31-year-old Seattle native, was killed when a makeshift bomb exploded near his Humvee during combat operations in Ramadi. He was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment from Baumholder, Germany.
Melvin was on his second tour in Iraq.
“The Army was his life. He was on his third enlistment and said he would ‘re-up’ and go as long as he could,” Bill Swindle, Melvin’s father, told the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
“His goal from the time he was 10 or 12 years old was to be a soldier. His brother was in the Marine Corps. I was a Navy man, 10 years active, 18 reserves.”
Melvin’s first duty assignment was to Fort Myer, Va., where he was a member of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as the Old Guard. He also served at Fort Lewis, Wash., and did stints in Panama and Egypt.
A year ago, Melvin married Mary, a mother of three. Her oldest child is a soldier and, like Melvin, a member of the 1st Armored Division. The two were serving together in Iraq when Melvin was killed.
The soldier will accompany Melvin’s body back to the States, Swindle told the Intelligencer.
News reports in the U.S. indicate two others were killed in the attack, but press releases from the Department of Defense and Multi-National Force-Iraq make no such statement.
