CHICOPEE, MA, US
U.S. Army
SSG, TROOP A, 1ST SQD, 8TH CAVALRY, FORT HOOD, TX
06/27/2007, BAGHDAD, IRAQ
Army Staff Sergeant Daniel Allen Newsome died Wednesday, June 27, 2007 of injuries sustained during the mission supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom in Baghdad, Iraq. Twenty-seven year old Staff Sergeant Newsome was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. He had also served a tour of duty in Kosovo.
After Army Staff Sergeant Daniel A. Newsome’s first tour of duty in Iraq, he returned to Hawaii and said he was lonely. He e-mailed his friends from home asking if any would come visit him. And one — Karen, a woman he’d known at Chicopee, Massachusetts high school — did. They married in 2005. Daniel was a 1998 graduate of the high school. Family note that Karen had loved Daniel from the moment she met him and knew that one day she would marry him.
Daniel made friends easily, and his personality included his love for skateboards and fast cars. Even as an adult he enjoyed making his souped-up Honda even better with additions to enhance either its appearance or performance.
Daniel was born in Springfield and raised in Chicopee. He had last been home about a month before he died; and the family made sure they celebrated his son’s first birthday, even though it had not yet arrived. That wonderful visit included the memory of fun watching his son smash birthday cake all of over Danny and Karen’s faces.
Daniel was close to friends and family and especially close to his mother’s family which included a special aunt and uncle and their two sons. The soldiers who served with him felt safer while on duty with him because they had strong confidence that he would take the best actions to keep everyone safe. Daniel was the subject of a news article several months before his death, and while he explained about some of the close calls he had, he never felt as though he would not be able to complete his military work and return home to pursue civilian life. He was half way through his second tour of duty and had plans to leave the Army in April of 2008.