
EAST UTICA, N.Y. — George Wood seemed invincible to his family and friends.
The 33-year-old Army captain led four tanks in Iraq, and hoped to use the experience of leading troops to help him prepare for a doctorate.
But on Saturday, hundreds of mourners gathered at a funeral Mass at St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church for the fallen soldier who was killed in Iraq last week when the vehicle he was riding in struck an explosive.
“It’s impossible for me to accept that he’s dead,” his wife, Lisa Wood, told the Observer-Dispatch of Utica. “My mind knows, but some part of me has not accepted it.”
Wood grew up in nearby Marcy in central New York, and attended...