CAMP RED CLOUD, South Korea — A 2nd Infantry Division soldier was killed in Iraq on May 18, the Defense Department announced Wednesday.
Sgt. Antwan L. Walker, 22, of Tampa, Fla., was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, when his camp was attacked by enemy forces using indirect fire.
The Associated Press reported that five other U.S. soldiers were wounded in the rocket attack.
Walker was assigned to the Army’s 2nd Forward Support Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division, which left South Korea in August to deploy to Iraq with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (Strike Force). The Strike Force’s 3,500 soldiers are expected to move to Fort Carson, Colo., when their Iraq tour ends.
According to the Tampa Tribune, Walker’s mother, Andrea Pringle, was planning a coming-home party for her son when the Army informed her of his death on May 19.
Walker, known as Twan to his friends and family, graduated from East Bay High School and joined the Army in 2000 to earn money for college, Pringle was quoted as saying.
“Twan had a lot of goals in life. He was very ambitious and smart,” she said in the report.
Walker, who was based in South Korea for six months before deploying to Iraq, called his family often from the desert, the Tribune reported.
According to the Tribune, he seldom talked about the war, focusing instead on his desire to start a career in real estate and his three children, whom he raised alone after his divorce. Walker’s parents and aunts looked after the children while he was overseas, according to the paper.
“He was such a good dad. All he wanted to do was make a good life for his kids,” Pringle said.
“The last two weeks we had been talking every day. Sometime he’d call two or three times a day. I always told him, ‘I’m proud and be safe,’” she said.
Walker’s 2-year-old twins, Antwan Jr. and Antwannaja, are too young to understand but 4-year-old Antwanette knows her dad isn’t coming home, Pringle told the paper.
“She’s smart like her dad. That’s daddy’s little girl,” the soldier’s mother was quoted as saying.
Walker’s family told the paper they plan to throw a party to celebrate what would have been his 23rd birthday on Sunday.
Walker’s death brings the total number of Strike Force soldiers killed in Iraq to 60, according to a Stars and Stripes tally.
As of Tuesday, at least 1,645 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,257 died as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. The figures include four military civilians.
