| From The Californian North County Times nctimes.com
03/02/07:
Oceanside soldier dies in roadside bomb explosion
By: Staff reports -
OCEANSIDE -- An Oceanside man was one of three soldiers killed Tuesday in Baghdad, Iraq, from a roadside bomb explosion, the Defense Department announced Friday.
Sgt. Richard A. Soukenka, 30, died of wounds received when the bomb exploded near his vehicle, the Pentagon said. Soukenka and two others in the vehicle who died with him were assigned to the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), from Fort Drum, N.Y.
Family members could not be located for comment Friday night.
A March 1994 story in the Blade-Citizen, a predecessor to the North County Times, said Soukenka cleared 10 feet in the pole vault at a league meet the previous year, the first Oceanside pole vaulter to do so in a long time. Newspaper records show him listed among the Oceanside High School graduating class of 1995.
The deaths of Soukenka and Cpl. Lorne E. Henry Jr., 21, of Niagara Falls, N.Y., and Spc. Jonathan D. Cadavero, 24, of Takoma Park, Md., brought the number of American service members killed in Iraq to 3,165 as of Friday evening, according to the Associated Press. |
