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IRAQ IN TRANSITION:
CASUALTIES
2 Illinois soldiers are
killed by bomb assaults in Iraq
By Patrick Rucker
Tribune
staff reporter
Published February 26,
2005
When Jake Palmatier told his
parents to sit down in March 2002 for some news, they did not hear
what they expected.
He was not ill and neither had he eloped,
as they thought, but their only child was joining the
Army.
"He said that he had made a decision," said David
Palmatier of how his son gave the news. "He said that joining the
Army was something he always wanted to do."
Five months
later, Jacob Palmatier of Springfield, Ill., was in basic training
at Ft. Benning, Ga., and embarking on a sudden life change that
would take him to service in South Korea and Iraq.
On
Thursday, Spec. Palmatier, 29, was killed by a roadside bomb 60
miles outside of Baghdad.
Palmatier's parents said their son
was part of a convoy of military vehicles delivering mail when he
came under attack.
Palmatier was assigned to the 1st
Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry
Division.
Also killed in Iraq on Thursday was Army Staff Sgt.
Daniel G. Gresham, 23, of Lincoln, Ill.
Gresham was
responding to the scene of a booby trap bombing near Camp Wilson
when he was killed in a secondary explosion.
Gresham was
assigned to the 797th Ordnance Company (Explosive Ordnance
Disposal), 79th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ordnance, Ft. Sam Houston,
Texas.
After graduating from Lutheran High School in
Springfield in 1993, Palmatier graduated magna cum laude from
Illinois College with a degree in English, his family said.
Fascinated by music from childhood, Palmatier sang in a choir at
college and played guitar in a rock band.
Although he said he
wanted to become an English professor, Palmatier worked for several
years as a technician at a state agency after graduation.
"He
was just marking time until he figured out what he wanted to do,"
said David Palmatier.
Then he decided to enlist.
After
basic training, Palmatier served a year in Korea where his interest
in music continued.
"He came back home with 7 electric
guitars," his father said.
Two days after Christmas 2003,
Palmatier married the girlfriend he met in college, Bridget
Hendrickson. The couple had once dated as students, broken up and
reunited after graduation.
"They decided to have the ceremony
in a big church here in Springfield," his father said.
After
their wedding, the couple moved to Georgia where Palmatier returned
to serve at Ft. Benning.
Several times he was offered a
promotion to a specialty service but declined, his father
said.
"He just wanted to be another guy in the Army. An
infantryman," he said. "That's everything he wanted to
be."
About a year after he was married, Palmatier's unit was
chosen for service in Iraq.
He shipped out Jan. 16, his dad
said.
"He had been in the country less than a
month."
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
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