Dwayne J. McFarlane Jr.
Profile
Age: 20
From: Cass Lake, Minn.
Assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.
Incident: Army Spc. Dwayne J. McFarlane Jr. was killed Jan. 9 when his dismounted patrol was hit by an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.
Died: January 09, 2005
Fort Drum soldier killed by roadside bomb near Baghdad
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — Spc. Dwayne James McFarlane Jr. had seen soldiers die all around him in Iraq, but he put on a brave face for the aunt and uncle who raised him.
“He knew, he understood the dangers,” his uncle, Don Bellanger, said Monday. “He was aware of them, but he was always on the upbeat. He’d say, ‘Don’t worry about me.”’
McFarlane, 20, of Cass Lake, was on foot near Baghdad on Sunday when a roadside bomb went off, Pentagon spokesman Khalid Walls said. McFarlane, the 11th Minnesota soldier to die in military operations in Iraq, was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), at Fort Drum, N.Y.
Walls didn’t immediately have details of the attack.
“(They) said Dwayne died instantly and didn’t suffer, which made me feel a little better because I was very worried about that,”...
Occupation
Incident
Prayers & Messages
-B-
I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze
A young soldier saluted it, and then
He stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many Pilots' planes shot down?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No Freedom isn't free
I heard the sound of taps one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That taps had meant "Amen"
When a flag had draped a coffin
of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard at the
bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.....
No -- Freedom isn't free!!
...Cadet Major Kelly Strong
Air Force Junior ROTC