
MONROE CITY, Mo. — A former northeast Missouri man who was killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq once told his mother that he knew the military he hoped to make his career could cost him his life — but that he would be at peace dying in a helicopter.
“Ben has always been one to go for a challenge,” Mary Sims said of her brother, Army Capt. Benedict J. Smith, who was killed Nov. 7 in the crash near Tikrit.
Smith, his sister said, “was very proud of his service,” believed in the American military role in Iraq and assured his family that he would be OK.
“We’ve always been worried about him being over there, but you operate under the assumption that...