Former Cadet Killed in Iraq

Printer-friendly versionEmail to friend

Just one week after receiving his promotion to Staff Sergeant, Jonathan Dozier, 30, of Chesapeake, VA was killed in combat during operations in Sinsil in central Iraq on Wednesday January 9, 2008.

Dozier attended Fork Union Military Academy briefly as a sophomore between February and May of 2004.

Dozier, a sniper team leader, was one of six soldiers killed when an improvised explosive device was detonated in a building they had entered during combat operations. The soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Vilseck, Germany. Also killed in the blast was an Iraqi interpreter.

Dozier joined the army in 1997, then left the service to attend Middle Tennessee State University, re-enlisting in the army in 2005. He was a sniper team leader and was leading his men searching buildings for insurgents and explosives. House bombs are an ongoing threat in the Diyala province, and the house in which Dozier was killed had been cleared once of explosives just two weeks earlier. Diyala province was also the scene of earlier combat that injured FUMA alumnus SSGT Jonathan Grundy, now recovering in Walter Reed Hospital from a bullet wound to the face.

Dozier attended Fork Union Military Academy for the end of his sophomore year. He arrived after yearbook photos had been taken, so there is no cadet photo available at this time, but the photo below was the last picture he mailed to his father, Carl Dozier, from Iraq.