Katrina L. Bell-Johnson
Profile
Age: 32
From: Orangeburg, S.C.
Assigned to the 418th Transportation Company, 180th Transportation Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas
Incident: Army Spc. Katrina L. Bell-Johnson was killed Feb. 16 in a vehicle accident in Baqubah, Iraq.
Died: February 16, 2005
Orangeburg native dies in Iraq
Associated Press
ORANGEBURG, S.C. — An Orangeburg woman serving in Iraq has died after the truck she was riding in overturned, family members said.
Katrina Johnson, 32, died Wednesday in Baghdad while riding in a convoy delivering supplies, her sister Nicole Johnson said.
“We’re not sure if there was a mine or what,” Nicole Johnson said. “We’re going to try to find out the circumstances.”
Katrina Johnson was assigned to H Platoon, 418th Transportation, based out of Killeen, Texas. She was an expert markswoman and was seeking promotion to sergeant, her sister said.
Johnson married in Texas and had given birth to a baby girl, Gabrielle Dana Bell, about a year ago, her sister said.
Two months after giving birth, she was sent to Iraq. Johnson came back to the U.S. for six months before returning to Iraq late last year, her sister said.
Nicole Johnson said her sister...
Occupation
Incident
Prayers & Messages
I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze
A young soldier saluted it, and then
He stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many Pilots' planes shot down?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No Freedom isn't free
I heard the sound of taps one night,
When everything was still.
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That taps had meant "Amen"
When a flag had draped a coffin
of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard at the
bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.....
No -- Freedom isn't free!!
...Cadet Major Kelly Strong
Air Force Junior ROTC