Aaron J Sissel

Spc. Aaron J. Sissel had to get his mother's permission to enlist in the National Guard at age 17, just as he was beginning his senior year of high school. "All his friends were in," his mother, Jo Sissel, said. Sissel, 22, of Tipton, Iowa, was killed Nov. 29 when his cargo truck was ambushed in Haditha, Iraq. He was stationed at Fort Carson, and is survived by his mother and his father, Kirk Sissel. Sissel was riding with one of his high school classmates when he died. Spc. Joe A. Gottschalk, another 1998 graduate, survived the attack. Jo Sissel said that her son was doing what he loved and felt he had a job to do. "He would have been upset had he not been able to go (to Iraq)," she said.

— Associated Press