
His father remembers him as a rebel with a willingness to mix it up and a boy who had loved animals all his life in Valentine, Neb.
And his friends remembered him June 16 as someone they could count on. Always.
Their friend Josiah Hollopeter died June 14 from wounds suffered during an ambush by Iraqi insurgents.
The Pentagon said the 27-year-old Army specialist and the rest of his four-man sniper team were ambushed in Al Muqdidiyah.
He was assigned to the 6th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division, which is based in Fort Hood, Texas.
He was the third soldier with Nebraska ties to be killed in Iraq in less than a week.
Family members said 21-year-old Val John Borm died in Iraq’s Kirkuk province this week after an explosion near his Humvee. And the...