The Pentagon has announced the deaths of a 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment captain and sergeant in Afghanistan.
Capt. David A. Boris, 30, of Pottsville, Pa., and Sgt. Adrian E. Hike, 26, of Callender, Iowa, were killed Monday near Bermel in eastern Afghanistan when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. Both were members of 1-91’s Troop A deployed out of Schweinfurt, Germany.
Boris, a 1999 West Point graduate, graduated from Pottsville High School in 1995, where he was a standout athlete and Honor Society member, according to the Pottsville Republican-Herald.
“He was a great guy. I don’t know how else to describe him,” Linda Pavao, Boris’ mother-in-law, told the Republican-Herald. “If we could have handpicked a husband for our daughter, he would have been it.”
Boris’ wife of eight years, Jaime, resides in Schweinfurt. Pavao also said that Boris was looking to acquire a teaching position at West Point after his time in Afghanistan was complete.
On his second deployment, Hike previously had received a Purple Heart for actions in Iraq in 2005.
A 2000 graduate of Sac City High School in Sac City, Iowa, Hike believed in what he was doing, his mother, Kim Bird, told NBC affiliate KTIV. “(He) was a very giving person,” she said, adding that he loved being in the Army.
One of Hike’s former employers, Darwin Otto, of Casey’s General Store in Sac City, told KTIV, “His goal was always to strive for the best. That’s why he ended up what he is, because that’s what he wanted to be. He wanted to do something with his life.”
Hike is survived by his parents and four brothers.
A memorial service has been scheduled for 11 a.m. Nov. 28 at Ledward Barracks chapel in Schweinfurt.
Boris and Hike were the fourth and fifth members of 1-91 killed since the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, of which the squadron is a part, deployed on a 15-month assignment in May.
The brigade has now lost 26 during this rotation, equaling the number of soldiers lost on their two previous deployments downrange combined, having lost nine men in Iraq in 2003-04, and 17 in Afghanistan in 2005-06.
