Combat Death in Iraq
Ambush Tenn. Guard's

By Associated Press

July 12, 2003

NASHVILLE - The Tennessee National Guard suffered its first combat fatality in decades when a solider was killed in the ambush of a convoy in Iraq, the state adjutant general said.

Sgt. Roger Dale Rowe, 54, of Bon Aqua died Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Gus Hargett said.

Rowe was a member of Detachment 1, 771st Maintenance Company in Hohenwald, but was serving in Iraq with the 1174th Transportation Company from Dresden and Newbern because of his experience driving a truck.

He was one of about 1,200 Tennessee National Guard troops stationed in and around Iraq, said Sgt. 1st Class Randy Harris, a spokesman. The units include an airlift wing, ground transportation, military police and a rear-guard support command group, Harris said.

Harris said the Tennessee Guard did not lose a solider in the first Gulf War and Rowe is the first to die in the current conflict.

The next most recent combat fatality "was at least as far back as Vietnam, and I can't verify that because the Guard was not mobilized very much then," Harris said. "It could go all the way back to Korea. We've looked and just don't have any record of it."

Two Tennesseans - a soldier in the regular Army and a Marine - were killed in Iraq earlier this year. Spc. Thomas Arthur Foley III of Dresden died in April, and Marine Cpl. Patrick Nixon was killed in March.

The fatal attack on the military convoy occurred near the city of Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad. Rowe was the only fatality the U.S. Army reported.

The ambush continued a pattern of daily attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Since President Bush declared major combat operations had ended on May 1, at least 31 U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile fire and 46 others have died in accidents and other non-hostile circumstances, a total of 77.

"Our deepest sympathy and sincere condolences go out to Sergeant Rowe's wife and family," Hargett said in a statement released Thursday. "The entire Tennessee National Guard is shocked and saddened by this tragic loss."

Harris said it would be several days before funeral arrangements are known.

Rowe had a strong sense of duty, and while his family was concerned when he was called to go overseas, Rowe saw it as his duty to protect his children and grandchildren, his son, Mart Rowe, told The Tennessean.

Rowe had been running missions back and forth from Baghdad to Kuwait. Photos he sent home showed him standing in front of a convoy of trucks, and by a desert road with camel herders behind him, his family said.

"He had written back a few times and said how much he had missed everybody and said he'd hoped to see us soon," Mart Rowe said. "He had seen some small-arms fire and mostly complained about the heat sleeping on top of his tanker truck at nights and it being 120, 130 degrees during the day."

Rowe also served in the Vietnam War in 1969 in an Army medical unit.

His son described him as a slight man, about 135 pounds. He worked as a shipping clerk with Shiloh Industries in Dickson.

He enjoyed watching his grandchildren play and swim in the pool at the home he shared with his wife in Hickman County, about 35 miles southwest of Nashville. He had planned to build a clubhouse for them but had run out of time before he was deployed, relatives said.

"He told us before he left that he had too much to live for and that he would come back home," said his daughter-in-law Tammy Rowe.

Rowe's 55th birthday would have been Monday.