Long Beach Press Telegram

Long Beach Army Sgt. Killed in Iraq
Sgt. Anthony J. Davis Jr. is the city's fifth Iraq loss
By Kristopher Hanson
Staff writer

Monday, April 25, 2005 - An Army sergeant from Long Beach has been killed in northern Iraq, becoming the city's fifth member of the armed forces to die in the war-torn nation since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

Sgt. Anthony J. Davis Jr., 22, was killed Saturday afternoon when a car bomb exploded next to his armored vehicle in Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. Davis was riding in a 19-ton, eight-wheeled armored troop transport vehicle known as a Stryker when a car bomb detonated nearby, U.S. Department of Defense officials said Monday.

Davis, who listed a Long Beach address when he enlisted in August 2001, was married and had two children, Army officials said. Family could not be reached for comment Monday, and it was not clear how long he had lived in Long Beach.

The explosion apparently occurred near the ancient city's heavily traveled al-Yarmouk Circle as U.S. soldiers patrolled the area for insurgents, according to The Associated Press. It was unclear if anyone else was injured in the attack.

Davis, an infantryman, was deployed to Iraq in October from Fort Lewis, Wash., where he'd been stationed with the Army's 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division Stryker Force Combat Team.

The unit has spent the past several months in and around Mosul, and played a major role in securing the city of more than 1.5 million for the Jan. 30 national elections.

"He was over there supporting the Iraqi people and helping them secure a democratic government for themselves," said Fort Lewis spokesman Joe Hitt.

Not long after the blast, Saleh Ibrahim, an Associated Press Television News cameraman, was fatally wounded after responding to the scene of an explosion in Mosul and being hit by gunfire. Authorities in Iraq are working to determine if the incidents are related.

Davis' death comes nearly three months after Army Pfc. Stephen Anthony Castellano of Long Beach died from a gunshot wound suffered during an apparent accident in Mosul. Castellano, 20, had been stationed in the area with another Army unit.

Davis is Long Beach's fifth known member of the armed forces to die in Iraq.

Twenty-three-year-old Army Spc. Edgar Daclan Jr. was fatally wounded in an explosion near Balad on Sept. 10, 2004, and Army Pfc. Lyndon Anson Marcus Jr., 21, was killed when the Humvee he was riding in crashed into a ditch outside Balad on May 3, 2004.

Marine Pfc. George Torres was killed April 11, 2003 in a gunfight west of Baghdad.

Davis has been awarded several medals, including the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the National Defense Service Medal, Hitt said.

A memorial service in Washington is planned for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Evergreen Chapel at Fort Lewis. Information on local services was unavailable Monday.

Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group

How come we never see stories like Beverly Hills Army Corporal Killed in Iraq or Palos Verdes Estates Marine dies in Afghan Ambush? It couldn't be that we have an economic draft, could it? And that working class kids are killing ang being killed for Texas oil billionaires?

The left HATES the military.

So stop reporting on the deaths as if you care.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Since WW2 the left has done worse than nothing. They've put the military down and taken the wrong side, the side of America's enemies, EVERY TIME.

That's why you're out of office and out of Vaseline, socialists.

Long Beach Press Telegram

Never Met Daughter

L.B. soldier Sgt. Anthony J. Davis Jr., killed by blast in Iraq, leaves wife, two small children.
By Kristopher Hanson
Staff writer

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 - LONG BEACH -- He wouldn't admit it, but Michell Davis knew her husband's job in Iraq was dangerous.

The days were long and full of peril, the nights tense and often sleepless, but Army Sgt. Anthony Jerome Davis Jr. never complained to Michell or their two young daughters during frequent Webcam conversations between her mother's home in Compton and his base in Northern Iraq.

"He was proud of what he was doing,' Michell said Tuesday. "He never really told me any of that stuff. I think he knew that I probably wouldn't be able to handle it and he didn't want me to worry about him.'

The 22-year-old Long Beach resident was killed Saturday in the restive city of Mosul when a passenger car filled with explosives rammed into the 19-ton, eight-wheel Stryker troop transport vehicle he was riding in.

One of Davis' comrades, Army Pfc. Paul Bublis II, 24, was seriously injured in the attack, but was expected to survive.

Michell said the news of Anthony's death hasn't quite sunk in, and she's drawing upon her close- knit family to keep herself together. One of the toughest aspects of his death is the fact that he didn't get to meet his youngest daughter, Aniya, born two weeks after his deployment in October.

The couple also have a 4-year- old daughter, Ah'lania.

"We're proud of him because he was accomplishing what he'd set out to do by helping people and providing for us,' Michell said. "He was always helping people.'

Davis planned to become a police officer when his enlistment was up in two years, probably in Southern California, where he'd spent much of his life. According to Army officials, family and friends, he was well on his way to realizing that dream.

Hard work, training and excellent marksmanship earned him the rank of sergeant several months before his deployment to northern Iraq last October.

In Iraq, Davis took a leadership role overseeing surveillance operations within his unit, the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team).

He secured polling locations during the war-torn country's national elections in January and was helping train Iraqi National Guard troops along with other members of the Stryker team.

A sniper, according to his wife, he spent much of his time in Iraq atop rooftops and other above- ground perches, scanning the city with his automatic rifle for insurgents.

Davis had been in Mosul since October, when his infantry unit was deployed from Fort Lewis in southern Washington. Michell and their daughters moved back to Southern California at the time to wait out his scheduled yearlong deployment.

They last talked Thursday. He told her everything was fine and he couldn't wait to get home to see his daughters.

Davis enlisted in the Army during the summer following his graduation from Jordan High School in 2001. He trained at Fort Benning in Georgia, then transferred to Fort Lewis.

He and Michell married April 13, 2002, following the birth of Ah'lania. Aniya arrived on Oct. 30, 2004.

Born in Harbor City, Anthony spent his childhood in Compton, Lynwood and Long Beach. He and Michell met as pre-teens, when they were neighbors in Lynwood, and had a relationship since.

"He was different from anybody else our age,' Michell said. "He didn't hang out in a big group of people and he never even thought about gangbanging. He didn't smoke cigarettes, he never drank alcohol and he was just strong in who he was. He would hang around people and no matter what they did, they wouldn't influence what he wanted to do ... and he would always make you smile.'

In addition to his wife and daughters, Anthony is survived by father Anthony Davis Sr., mother Charolette Davis, a brother, Mark, and two sisters, Anisha and Alea.

Local funeral services are pending.

Staff writer Kevin Butler contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Newspaper Group

Sgt. Anthony J. Davis Jr., 22, of Long Beach, Calif.

Sergeant was ‘hero’ to fellow soldiers

MICHAEL GILBERT; The News Tribune

Sgt. Anthony Davis could’ve ducked.

Instead he stood up out of the sentry hatch of his Stryker vehicle and opened fire on the driver of a car that had come barreling out of a side alley toward him and his comrades.

Army officers said Davis’ actions caused the driver – a suicide bomber – to detonate the explosives packed into his car before he could crash into the Stryker, perhaps saving the lives of the other men inside.

Davis was exposed to the full effects of the blast.

Fort Lewis gathered Wednesday to pay tribute to the 22-year-old infantryman from Long Beach, Calif., killed Saturday in Mosul, Iraq.

“He could have ducked inside the vehicle, but that was not Sergeant Davis,” said his former company commander, Capt. Bryan Carroll, at a memorial ceremony at the post’s Evergreen Chapel.

The car bomb detonated a few feet from the Stryker and was devastating nonetheless. Six other soldiers inside the vehicle were seriously wounded, and all have either been evacuated or are on their way to stateside Army hospitals, Maj. Nicholas Mullen said. Some suffered burns.

“This was just a very large bomb, larger than most we’ve seen in the past,” said Mullen, rear detachment commander of the 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

Davis was the sniper team leader with Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment – a unit of the 1st Brigade.

He is the brigade’s 25th service member to be killed since it arrived in Iraq last October, and the eighth from his battalion. The Deuce Four, as it is known, has lost more soldiers in the Iraq war than any other battalion from Fort Lewis.

He is also the 90th service member from Washington or Washington state military bases to die in the war.

Davis was riding with the current Bravo Company commander, Capt. Rob Shaw, along a main route in Mosul on Saturday afternoon, Mullen said.

He said it’s not likely the attacker knew he was bearing down on a commander’s Stryker.

The right rear sentry hatch was Davis’ regular perch, and soldiers said he rode it all over Mosul during his seven months in Iraq.

Spc. Luis Cruz said his friend spoke often of his family and had a quiet, firm way about him.

Davis is survived by his wife, Michell, and their two daughters, Ah’lania, 4, and Aniya, who was born in October, about three weeks after her father left for Iraq.

He never got the chance to see his new baby, soldiers noted Wednesday.

His family lives in Southern California.

“Warrior. Father. Hero. Husband. Soldier. Son. He was all that and more,” Cruz said. “A brother, a loyal and true friend.

“He will be dearly missed.”

Michael Gilbert: 253-597-8921

mike.gilbert@thenewstribune.com

© Copyright 2005 Tacoma News, Inc. A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company

There's nothing wrong with reporting on the lives and deaths of military heroes. But when the article posters are idealogically the same as the anti-military idiots who write, "Support our Dupes" there's something rotten in Denmark. These anti-American nitwits are the offspring of the Fondas and Kerry's that sabotaged Vietnam War efforts. Don't let them get away with it.

MILITARY DEATHS
Army Sgt. Anthony J. Davis Jr., 22, Long Beach; Killed in an Explosion
By Tonya Alanez
Times Staff Writer

May 1, 2005

Anthony Jerome Davis Jr. and his wife, Michell, danced in her mother's Compton living room to the music of Marvin Gaye and Patti LaBelle shortly before the Army sergeant's October deployment to Iraq.

It was a happy moment. Michell, 20, was pregnant with the daughter who would be born two weeks after Anthony's departure. Her husband was feeling playful and "silly," laughing and smiling.

"When he smiled, his whole face lit up and everybody else couldn't help but smile too," she said.

That smile caught Michell's eye when she was just 12 and Anthony was the 13-year-old "boy next door."

"He was different; he didn't have to be like everybody else," she said.

Anthony Davis, a 22-year-old father of two from Long Beach, was killed April 23 when an explosive device detonated in Mosul, Iraq, near the eight-wheeled, armored Stryker vehicle he was in, the Department of Defense said. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) at Ft. Lewis, Wash.

A 2001 graduate of Jordan High School in Long Beach, he enlisted in the Army the summer after graduation, when Michell was pregnant with their first daughter, Ah'lania, now 4.

The couple were married April 13, 2002. Aniya, the daughter he never met or held, was born Oct. 30, 2004.

Davis didn't tell his parents he was enlisting in the Army. When he told them that he needed their permission to finalize the paperwork because he was only 17, they tried to talk him out of it, said his mother, Charlotte Davis.

"It wasn't about going to fight for my country," she said. "But once he got in there, he tried to be all he could be. He did it initially to be able to support his family."

Davis, who played football and baseball in the neighborhood park as a child and loved his mother's "home-style" macaroni and cheese, was "smooth" and "carefree," his mother said.

"I was truly blessed," she said. "He didn't do drugs, he didn't gangbang, he didn't disrespect us, he didn't drink or smoke cigarettes. I couldn't have asked for a better son. My son is a hero, and he's my soldier, and I'll miss him."

Davis and his wife spoke frequently by Webcam. Their last conversation was two days before his death.

The conversation was brief and lighthearted, his wife said.

He was smiling and laughing and looked healthy, she said. He preferred to speak of the lighthearted times like singing karaoke versions of Tupac Shakur and Nelly songs with his buddies — who called him "Ace" — at his northern Iraq base rather than the realities of war, she said.

"He was the type of person that never really met a stranger," his wife said. "He would talk to everybody and be friendly with everyone."

Davis hoped to join the Los Angeles Police Department after his tour of duty, she said.

In addition to his wife, two daughters and mother, Davis is survived by his father, Anthony; two sisters, ages 9 and 15; and a brother, 11.

Davis had been awarded an Army Service Ribbon, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal, said Tammy Reed, a Ft. Lewis spokeswoman.

A memorial service was held April 27 at Evergreen Chapel at Ft. Lewis, and the family will hold a funeral service Thursday at New Directions Christian Fellowship in Long Beach.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times