Spec. Robert Swaney was scheduled to leave Iraq and return to the United States this week to visit his wife before their first wedding anniversary.
“He told me he had a gut feeling he wasn’t going to make it,” his wife, Alexandria, said Wednesday.
Swaney, a 21-year-old cannoneer in Fort Carson’s 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, was killed by a roadside bomb July 30.
Friends and family gathered Wednesday at the base’s Soldiers’ Memorial Chapel to pay tribute to four 3rd Armored Cavalry soldiers killed in Iraq in late July and August.
About 250 attended the service for Swaney; 2nd Lt. Charles Rubado, 23; Chief Warrant Officer Dennis Hay, 32; and Cpl. Joseph Martinez, 21.
They are the most recent of 27 casualties suffered by Fort Carson troops since the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment redeployed to Iraq in March.
A fifth soldier, Spec. Jeffery Williams, will be memorialized at a future service.
Rubado was a unit movement officer described by a comrade as a workaholic. The newlywed wrote in his journal that the prospect of leaving his wife a widow “terrified” him.
Hay, nicknamed “Shooter,” piloted a Kiowa helicopter. Friends said his sense of humor helped defuse tension. Hay’s wife, Rebecca, and two children remain Colorado Springs residents.
Martinez, described as “quiet and persistent,” was the gunner of the platoon sergeant’s tank. He was killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq.
Swaney, nicknamed “Anger Management,” was described as “unstoppable under pressure.”
His aunt, Angie Denes, said she hopes Americans don’t lose their resolve in Iraq over the mounting casualties.
“We don’t want them to pull out of Iraq,” she said. “If they do, then Rob would have died in vain.”
About 7,000 Fort Carson troops are currently deployed in Iraq.
