http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...ck=1&cset=true
Dedication earned GI nickname `Dad'
By Sean D. Hamill and Shia Kapos
Special to the Tribune
Published February 9, 2005
At 42, Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class David A. Hartman was the oldest member of his unit, but that's not why he was referred to as "Dad."
Instead it was a sign of respect for the dedication Hartman had to those under his command, something he demonstrated simply by agreeing to go to Iraq last year.
After serving in the first Iraq war in 1990, he suffered from the symptoms of gulf war syndrome, requiring medication to keep painful swelling down in his joints.
"He could've stayed," said his wife Robbin, "but he said he couldn't leave his guys behind."
Hartman, of Akron, Mich., died July 17 in Bayji, Iraq, after a roadside bomb exploded under his vehicle. He was assigned to the Army Reserve's 401st Transportation Company from Battle Creek, Mich.
A dedicated family man, Hartman had a son, Benjamin, 21, and a daughter, Heather, 19, on whom he constantly doted.
The day he died, he was a day away from coming home for two weeks' leave, scheduled so he could be home for his daughter's birthday.
He found himself: It didn't take a psychology major to see what appealed to Paul C. Mardis Jr. about the military.
"He didn't have that male bonding experience with a father," said his older sister, Sherri Lawrence, who raised him after their parents died. "When he joined the Army, that's what I think he was looking for, that male companionship and bonding."
Always a goal-oriented person, Mardis found a career that perfectly suited his personality, qualifying for the elite Special Forces in the Army.
"He was always very much a daredevil and liked to push himself physically and mentally," his sister said. "He didn't want to just be a soldier; he wanted to be one of the best soldiers."
He had risen to staff sergeant in the Army's 3rd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, based in Ft. Campbell, Ky., by May 20 when he was critically injured in Mosul, Iraq, when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb. He died July 15 in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Mardis grew up in Coshocton, Ohio, but after the death of his mother when he was 14--his father had died when Mardis was 10--he raged against the world for a while, Lawrence said.
"He was on that edge in high school where he didn't care if he lived or died," she said. "And he was making bad choices."
Lawrence decided to move him away from the home his parents had lived in and relocated the family to Palmetto, Fla., his senior year.
"He hated it for a week, then football started, and it was all right," she said. "We used to joke that he'd appreciate us when he was 30, but it happened when he was 23 and was engaged [to his wife, Kacey]. Even friends said he had grown up and found himself."
A family man: When Roxanne Mogensen visited her son's new home in North Carolina, she couldn't believe what she saw. "It was just like the one he grew up in in New York. I looked at it, nestled in the pine trees and said, `This is Bobby.'"
Sgt. 1st Class Robert J. Mogensen, 26, died May 29 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, when the Humvee in which he was riding hit a land mine. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Ft. Bragg, N.C.
He worked in Special Forces, a division of the U.S. Army that is specially trained for guerrilla fighting, and he traveled the world, serving in Africa before his tour in Afghanistan, said his mother.
About 18 months before he was killed, Mogensen was injured in a similar attack. After his vehicle hit a mine, he was only scratched, though his hearing was damaged.
Mogensen, who planned a career training younger soldiers, was raised in upstate Gloversville, N.Y., where every winter he played hockey on an ice sheet that was created from runoff near his home.
When he was 15, he moved in with his father in Leesville, La.
"Bobby was a fun-loving kid," his mother said. "He always had a smile on his face and friends all around him. But he was private, too. Being a teenager is hard, and our divorce affected him."
In Louisiana, while working at a Pizza Hut restaurant, he met his future wife, Tanya. The pair married before Mogensen enlisted at age 17. They had three children--Lillani, born a week before his last tour to Afghanistan, Vanessa, 6, and Joshua, 11, his wife's son, whom he planned to adopt.
By all accounts, he had it all, said Roxanne Mogensen. Most of all, though, "he just wanted a happy family."