
SAN ANTONIO — From Operation Iraqi Freedom, a Central Texas soldier told of his nights spent in the charred remains of one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and days spent guarding the Central Bank of Baghdad.
To Robert L. Frantz’s family, it appeared the 19-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter and plans to marry had matured quickly since joining the Army and then going overseas for the war in Iraq.
“He wanted his daughter to be proud of him,’’ said his stepfather, Vincent Smith, a Lackland Air Force Base firefighter. “He grew into a man strictly overnight, by joining the Army. He was a little scared, but excited. He knew he was going to...