
During his two decades in the Army, Michael A. Benson would often come home and tell stories about traveling all over the world. Few of those locations were vacations.
“He used to rattle off a long list of names of places and then we would realize those were all places where bad things were happening,” said his mother, Norma Benson.
Benson, 40, of Winona, Minn., died Aug. 10 at a Maryland hospital of injuries he sustained Aug. 2 in Baghdad when a bomb struck his convoy. He was based at Fort Drum.
Benson graduated high school in 1983 and joined the Army two years later, hoping to make a career out of it. He earned a host of decorations, including the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Over his Army career, Benson mastered the intricacies of infantry weapons, the life of a paratrooper and he served for years as an Army recruiter.
His ex-wife, Robyn...