COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A 21-year-old man who died from a lightning strike was a soldier from Fort Carson who had served a year in Iraq and was about to return for another tour.
El Paso County sheriff’s Lt. Lari Sevene said John Cowan Jr. died when lightning struck near his tent Sunday and the current traveled through the ground and struck him.
Cowan had taken shelter in a tent with three others who suffered only minor injuries.
His family said he had recently re-enlisted and asked to be transferred from the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Ky., to his unit in Fort Carson so he could be in the Rocky Mountains and closer to home.
“It’s kind of ironic,” John Cowan Sr., of Florence, Mont., told The Denver Post in Tuesday’s editions. “You would have never guessed that being back here in the United States doing what he loved to do would catch up to him.”
The soldier’s mother, Lodi Cowan, recalled the welcome home ceremony when he and his unit returned from Iraq in September 2006.
Military service and a love of the outdoors run in the family.
John Cowan Jr. was born at Fort Stewart, Ga., while his father was in the military, and his grandfather, Sgt. 1st Class Dale Franklin, died in Vietnam in 1968, the family said.
“He had been outdoors since he was able to walk, even while he was still in diapers,” said his mother, Lodi Cowan. “It wasn’t a hobby or a passion, it was part of him.”
He even found an outdoor activity while deployed in Iraq from September 2005 to September 2006 as a supply truck driver.
“They used to play with the Rangers (ATVS) that the Army had in camp to move things around short distances,” she said. “He and his friends would ride around popping wheelies and having a good time with them.”
A tattoo on his chest, near his heart, was taken from a photo of his father snowmobiling.
“He had two loves, his family and his outdoors,” she said.
John Cowan Jr. and his three companions were hiking a trail near St. Peter’s Dome along Old Stage Road, about five miles west of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. They had hiked to a lookout point which provides a panoramic view of the Front Range.
Cowan was assigned to the 360th Transportation Company, 68th Corps Support Battalion, 43rd Area Support Group.
Lodi Cowan said her son’s unit was deployed early last month and he was about to be sent there to join them.
