Michael R. Jarrett
Profile
Age: 20
From: North Platte, NE
Assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment, 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, Illesheim, Germany
Incident: Army Pfc. Michael R. Jarrett died Jan. 6 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat-related incident.
Died: January 06, 2010
Friends fondly remember ‘Potato’
The Associated Press
Michael R. Jarrett grew up in southern California but joined the Army in 2007 in North Platte, Neb., where he had traveled with best friend Andy Clark.
“He decided it was better than minimum wage in Nebraska,” Clark told the Ramona Sentinel of Ramona, Calif.
Jarrett’s mother, Brenda, said the longtime Boy Scout had a knack for getting others involved, whether he was camping, riding three-wheelers or digging for crabs at the beach. She called him Mike, but close friends used the default moniker he was once assigned while logging on to play a video game.
“For the next hour we all kept getting killed by ‘Potato,’ ” Clark said, according to the newspaper. “The guys kept saying, ‘Dude! Who’s Potato?’ ”
From then on, it was Jarrett.
The lanky, 20-year-old helicopter mechanic died Jan. 6 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries from a...