One was a father of three children, ages 9 and younger, who was serving his second tour of Iraq.
One was a “big teddy bear” who liked to take his grandmother on dinner dates back home.
And the third was a Cleveland Browns fan who grew up wanting to join the military and jump out of planes.
Three more Stryker brigade soldiers from Fort Lewis were killed in Iraq over the weekend, the Department of Defense reported Monday afternoon.
Staff Sgt. Brian M. Long, 32, of Burns, Wyo., died Sunday in Baghdad of wounds suffered in an explosion. A Fort Lewis spokeswoman said he was killed after the detonation of an unexploded round he’d found on patrol.
Long was a member of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – the Stryker brigade that has been in Iraq for a year. He and his buddies were due home this month until their deployment was recently stretched to 15 months.
Pvt. Scott A. Miller, 20, of Casper, Wyo., and Sgt. Cory M. Endlich, 23, of Massillon, Ohio, were killed Saturday by enemy small-arms fire. They were fatally wounded in separate attacks north of Baghdad, according to the Pentagon.
Miller, assigned to 3rd Brigade, died in Baqouba.
Endlich belonged to the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – the other Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade, which deployed in April. He was killed in Taji.
The three casualties continue the most deadly period of the war for Fort Lewis. The post lost 20 soldiers in Iraq in May, and 10 so far in June.
Long, who made his local home in Roy, was the oldest and longest-serving of the men reported killed over the weekend. He fought with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment – one of 3rd Brigade’s front-line infantry battalions – and he went to Iraq the first time the brigade deployed in 2003. He reported to Fort Lewis in December 2000, according to the Defense Department.
A former sailor and member of a Navy bull-riding team, Long leaves a wife, Brenda, and three children: Sydney, 9, Shelby, 3, and Sage, 1, according to the Casper Star-Tribune of Casper, Wyo.
He regularly used a satellite link to read to his children before bed, according to the hometown paper.
“He was a good daddy, and a good husband and a good son,” his mother, Lynn Curtis of Burns, told the Star-Tribune. “You couldn’t ask for anybody better.”
Miller was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment – another of 3rd Brigade’s infantry battalions. He enlisted in the Army in 2004 and reported to Fort Lewis later that year, according to the Pentagon.
In 2004, he received his diploma from Wyoming’s Natrona County High School – the alma mater of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Miller was killed patrolling the streets of Baqouba, said his grandmother, Mary Harris.
“Nobody, nobody wants to bury their children; children are to bury us,” she told the Star-Tribune. “It’s incomprehensible, and it’s the mystery of life.”
Miller loved to eat and go on dinner dates with her, Harris told the hometown paper. When he came home on leave in March, they splurged and went to Red Lobster.
Endlich was a scout with the 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, which is part of the recently deployed 4th Brigade. He reported to Fort Lewis in early 2006, according to a military press release.
Growing up, he was a Browns fan, a tuba player and a solid B student who aspired to be a paratrooper, his parents said in an interview with the Massillon Independent.
Endlich achieved his goal after going to Airborne school and serving a few years with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
His mother, Cathi Endlich, said she last talked to him on June 2, the day before his birthday, when he’d been deployed less than two months.
“I asked him if he needed anything yet,” she told the Independent. “All he said was, ‘Please send me a couple coloring books and some crayons and hard candy.’ That’s all he asked for, nothing for him.”
Endlich had befriended some Iraqi children and wanted them to have a gift, she said.
Matt Misterek: 253-597-8472
matt.misterek@thenewstribune.com Staff writer Michael Gilbert contributed to this report.
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