Note: This article was originally published on July 10, 2003. We’re re-posting it now for our tribute to Colorado’s Fallen.
A 46-year-old soldier from Aurora is dead after suffering a gunshot
wound in Iraq, a U.S. Army official confirmed Wednesday.
Staff Sgt. Barry Sanford Sr. died Monday in Balad, a town just
northwest of Baghdad where he and other soldiers from Fort Campbell
in western Kentucky are stationed.
Sanford is the 16th soldier or Marine with ties to Colorado who has
died since being deployed to the Middle East earlier this year.
Eleven of the 16 are from Fort Carson, an Army post just south of
Colorado Springs. Sanford’s death came to light after officials
with the Defense Department on Wednesday afternoon released the
names of soldiers who died earlier this week.
The Army is investigating the non-combat death to determine if
Sanford’s weapon discharged accidentally or if his fatal wound was
self-inflicted.
Sanford had been in the Army for nearly 15 years. He was assigned
to Fort Campbell in western Kentucky in December. His duties
included maintaining equipment, records and parts for the 101st
Support Group.
A second Fort Campbell soldier, 23-year-old Robert L. McKinley of
Indiana, died Tuesday in a hospital in Germany after suffering
heatstroke in mid-June. Sanford’s and McKinley’s deaths were the
ninth and 10th for Fort Campbell. The post is the home to the only
air assault division in the world, said Master Sgt. Kelly Tyler, a
public affairs officer at Fort Campbell.
Another soldier from Fort Campbell, Sgt. Hasan Akbar 32, is accused
of killing two other members of his unit as they slept. Akbar now
faces two charges of premeditated murder and three charges of
attempted murder for a March 23 incident in which he allegedly
rolled a series of grenades into three sleeping tents at Camp
Pennsylvania in Kuwait and then opened fire on his fellow troops as
they raced out of their tents.
Another Fort Campbell soldier, Spc. Gil Mercado, 25, killed himself
on April 13 while in Iraq.
The Army post has also suffered heroic deaths. A Fort Campbell
soldier died after throwing himself on a small bomb that an Iraqi
child was carrying. Sgt. Troy D. Jenkins, 25, died April 23 after
the April 19 accident, which also injured three other soldiers. The
child was not harmed, Tyler said.
“We’ve had a series of deaths,” Tyler said. “They are hardships,
clearly, to the families, but also to the entire unit. Any time we
lose a soldier, it affects the entire division.”
More than 200 U.S. soldiers have died from either combat or
accidents since the war in Iraq began March 19.
