BAUMHOLDER, Germany — Two 1st Armored Division scouts from the Friedberg-based 1st Cavalry Brigade Reconnaissance Troop died Friday in Iraq, Pentagon officials said Monday.
Staff Sgt. Clint J. Storey, 30, of Enid, Okla., and Sgt. Bradley H. Beste, 22, of Naperville, Ill., were killed when an improvised bomb hit their Humvee during combat, according to a Department of Defense news release.
The reconnaissance troop is part of the 1st Brigade Combat team.
Storey had just gotten off crutches after being injured in a roadside bomb attack two weeks earlier, his mother, Carol Storey Inherst, told the Enid News and Eagle newspaper. Her son took great pride in being in the Army, Inherst said.
“Our only comfort is, this is what he really wanted to do,” she was quoted as saying in the paper.
His wife, Melissa Storey, said she’s grateful for the eight years she had with her husband, according to the Tulsa World newspaper.
“My only regret is that we didn’t have more time. I lost my soul mate … but he will never not be my husband,” she said.
The couple’s second child is due next February, she told the paper.
Beste graduated from Neuqua Valley High School in 2002 before he enlisted, according to the Daily Herald in Naperville.
He was the school wrestling squad before quitting to take an after-school job, said his former coach.
But, Mick Ruettiger stayed in contact with Beste, getting together with him when the soldier came home on leave. Beste had a work ethic “that was beyond compare, Ruettiger told the newspaper.
The young man was maturing in the Army, positioning himself for success “and he was going to use the military to do that,” he said.
Beste is survived by his mother and father, Denise and Jeffery Beste, of Texas, and three older siblings.
Clint Storey is survived by his wife, his daughter Adela, 4; his mother and stepfather, Bill Inherst; his sister, Charlene Phillips; and two half-sisters, Tammy Divine and Tonja Whitehead. All live in Oklahoma.
As of Monday, information about base memorial services for the two soldiers was not available.
