Roy Russell Buckley
Profile
Age: 24
From: Portage, Ind.
Assigned to the 685th Transportation Company, based in Hobart, Ind.
Incident: Army Spc. Roy Russell Buckley was killed when he fell from an M818 truck traveling in a convoy. The incident is under investigation.
Died: April 22, 2003
After an officer complimented him on the shine on his boots, Spc. Roy Russell Buckley of Portage, Ind., turned it into a profit-making venture — polishing boots for half his company before inspection.
“He made a lot of money shining those boots,” his mother, Janie Espinoza, told the Gary Post-Tribune.
Buckley, 24, an Army Reservist, died April 22 in a vehicle accident in Baghdad, the Pentagon said. He was traveling in a convoy and climbed out of the passenger compartment of a truck to get into the trailer and fell. After he did not return, he was discovered lying on the side of the road with serious injuries and was pronounced dead
“He was the life of the family,” said Espinoza, an ordained minister. “I’m just going to have to have the Lord...