Steven E. Shephard
Profile
Age: 30
From: Purcell, Okla.
Assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
Incident: Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Steven E. Shephard was killed June 27 when his AH-64D Apache helicopter crashed near Taji, Iraq. Also
Died: June 27, 2005
Oklahoma soldier killed in Iraq
By Sean Murphy
Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — A Purcell soldier was killed when his helicopter crashed about 20 miles north of Baghdad, family members confirmed Tuesday.
Army Warrant Officer Steven Shephard, 30, was one of the two pilots aboard the AH-64 Apache helicopter that crashed in Mishahda on Monday, his uncle, Earl Shephard, said.
“He was just a tremendous kid,” Earl Shephard told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “He believed in what he was doing and was proud to be doing what he was doing.
“The family’s taking it pretty hard.”
Steven Shephard had been in Iraq since January, Earl Shephard said. His wife is expecting the couple’s first child in September, Earl Shephard said.
A witness to the crash, Mohammad Naji, told Associated Press Television News he saw two helicopters flying toward Mishahda when “a rocket hit one of them and destroyed...