
When David White was an ROTC cadet, he got a lesson in how calm and cool fellow soldier Charles R. Rubado really was.
“I remember on a field training exercise, I had an accidental discharge of my weapon. It was a blank, right at his face,” recalled White.
“Instead of jumping on me like most, he took me aside and said, ‘Hey, White. That’s not how we do it.’ He was definitely a good guy.”
Rubado, 23, of Clearwater, Fla., was killed Aug. 29 by small-arms fire in Tal Afar. He was based at Fort Carson.
“The thing that struck me the most was his quietness and focus. He was not easily excitable, very mature and calm — more so than most cadets at his level,” said Maj. Chip Seifert.
Charlie graduated Florida Southern College in 2004, was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and a criminology...