
MESQUITE, Texas — With the Super Bowl approaching, the family of 1st Lt. Simon Timothy Cox Jr. thought of their deployed football fan in Iraq.
“He was so excited about sports and his family,” said Dorothy Duff, his mother-in-law who lives in Dallas. “He would get so involved and yell at them, ‘You’re kidding me!’ ”
Cox, 30, died Thursday after a roadside bomb detonated near his tank in Taji, the Department of Defense announced Sunday.
The Mesquite High School graduate was in his second tour of duty when he died, becoming at least the 195th Texas casualty in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to the defense department.
Cox was shipped...