Randy D. Collins
Profile
Age: 36
From: Long Beach, Calif.
Assigned to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Irwin, Calif.
Incident: Army Sgt. 1st Class Randy D. Collins died May 24 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., of injuries sustained May 4 during a mortar attack in Mosul, Iraq.
Died: May 24, 2005
Long Beach native killed in Iraq mortar attack
Associated Press
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Army Sgt. 1st Class Randy Collins was scheduled to spend Christmas with his family this year in one of his first holiday visits home since he began a demanding military career 17 years ago.
Collins, 36, died May 24 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., of wounds he sustained three weeks earlier in a mortar attack in Mosul, Iraq. He was assigned to the Army’s 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and was stationed at Fort Irwin, Calif.
“He won’t be back no more,” his mother, Margarette Miller, said between tears. “All his adult life he had been away in the service, and we’d be waiting for Christmas to come because he would be coming home.”
The sixth of nine children, Collins wanted to join the Army from a young age, his mother said.
He attended Mark Twain Elementary and Bancroft Junior High schools in Long Beach,...