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Former cadets to be honored at Veterans Memorial Service
The FUMA Corps of Cadets and members of the community will gather at FUMA's Veterans Memorial near the entrance to the campus at 6:30pm on the evening of November 11, 2008 to honor those who have served and sacrificed for our nation.
The names of 54 former cadets killed in action while serving in our nation's armed services are inscribed on the memorial wall. Two of those names, Jonathan K. Dozier and Eric D. Terhune, were added within the past few weeks as news came of their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Jonathan K. Dozier
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 as a sophomore in the 1993-1994 academic year.
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.
The photo below was sent by Dozier to his father a few days before he was killed and is the last known photo of him.
Eric D. Terhune
Captain Eric D. Terhune, age 34, had already served two tours of duty in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and was on his third tour of duty in the war on terror, this time in Afghanistan where he was serving with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division deployed in the Farah Province of Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
Terhune was born to be a Marine, quite literally, at the Quantico Naval Hospital where his father was a member of the Marine Corps, just as Terhune's grandfather had been before him. He attended Fork Union Military Academy during his sophomore year, 1989-1990.
Following high school, Captain Terhune served in the Marine Corps for four years as a non-commissioned officer. After his honorable discharge, Terhune used his GI Bill benefits to finish his education at Morehead State University and then returned to the United States Marine Corps as an officer, earning his wings as a naval aviator flying the CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter. He received three air medals while serving in Iraq in addition to numerous other combat related awards, including the Purple Heart.
Due to an injury that prevented him from flying, Captain Terhune was serving on the ground in Afghanistan as a Forward Air Controller. On June 19, 2008, Captain Terhune and a fellow Marine in his unit were killed during combat operations.
The photo below was taken of Captain Terhune about thirty minutes before the combat operation in which he was mortally wounded.
Posted by CPT Dan Thompson, Monday, November 10, 2008 02:31 PM
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