Uncle Sam
02-11-2004, 11:01 AM
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001855402_soldier11m.html
http://img19.photobucket.com/albums/v56/deathdot/2001846296.jpgThe long wait ended sadly yesterday for a Bremerton family whose loved one, a staff sergeant in the Army, had been missing in northern Iraq since the boat he was in capsized in the Tigris River on Jan. 25.
The body of Christopher Bunda, 29, was recovered after more than two weeks of searching by U.S. Navy divers, Army engineers and Iraqi police, the Department of Defense said.
Bunda was a squad leader and a sniper in the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade, which was deployed to Iraq in November. He lived in Bremerton with his wife, Michele, and two children: daughter Chrizchele, 6, and son Christian James, 3.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon last night released the names of two other Stryker-brigade soldiers killed in Sinjar, Iraq, on Monday.
Sgt. Thomas D. Robbins, 27, of Schenectady, N.Y., and Sgt. Elijah Tai Wah Wong, 42, of Mesa, Ariz., died when rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds they were transporting were detonated.
Six soldiers in the 3,600-member unit have died, all in accidents, since the brigade arrived in Iraq.
Bunda had jumped aboard an Iraqi police boat along with three squad members and an interpreter to search for insurgents who had fired mortar rounds at U.S. targets in Mosul.
The boat capsized after snagging a low-hanging power line, sending Bunda and several others into the river. Two Iraqi policemen drowned and two others were missing.
The misfortune was compounded when a Kiowa helicopter attached to the Stryker brigade crashed in the river while searching for Bunda and the policemen. One pilot was killed and the other remained missing yesterday.
Bunda was born and raised in the Philippines. He moved to the United States in 1991 as a teenager to live with his mother, Lita Vigil.
After graduating from Bremerton's Olympic High School, he joined the Navy but after a short stint switched to the Army because "he wanted to be in the action," his mother said.
Vigil, who runs an Asian grocery store in Bremerton with her husband, was in tears yesterday after learning her son's body had been found, unable to talk about the family's loss.
http://img19.photobucket.com/albums/v56/deathdot/2001846296.jpgThe long wait ended sadly yesterday for a Bremerton family whose loved one, a staff sergeant in the Army, had been missing in northern Iraq since the boat he was in capsized in the Tigris River on Jan. 25.
The body of Christopher Bunda, 29, was recovered after more than two weeks of searching by U.S. Navy divers, Army engineers and Iraqi police, the Department of Defense said.
Bunda was a squad leader and a sniper in the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade, which was deployed to Iraq in November. He lived in Bremerton with his wife, Michele, and two children: daughter Chrizchele, 6, and son Christian James, 3.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon last night released the names of two other Stryker-brigade soldiers killed in Sinjar, Iraq, on Monday.
Sgt. Thomas D. Robbins, 27, of Schenectady, N.Y., and Sgt. Elijah Tai Wah Wong, 42, of Mesa, Ariz., died when rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds they were transporting were detonated.
Six soldiers in the 3,600-member unit have died, all in accidents, since the brigade arrived in Iraq.
Bunda had jumped aboard an Iraqi police boat along with three squad members and an interpreter to search for insurgents who had fired mortar rounds at U.S. targets in Mosul.
The boat capsized after snagging a low-hanging power line, sending Bunda and several others into the river. Two Iraqi policemen drowned and two others were missing.
The misfortune was compounded when a Kiowa helicopter attached to the Stryker brigade crashed in the river while searching for Bunda and the policemen. One pilot was killed and the other remained missing yesterday.
Bunda was born and raised in the Philippines. He moved to the United States in 1991 as a teenager to live with his mother, Lita Vigil.
After graduating from Bremerton's Olympic High School, he joined the Navy but after a short stint switched to the Army because "he wanted to be in the action," his mother said.
Vigil, who runs an Asian grocery store in Bremerton with her husband, was in tears yesterday after learning her son's body had been found, unable to talk about the family's loss.