LOPEZ, PA, USA U.S. Army PFC, BATTERY A, 3D BATTALION, 6TH FIELD ARTILLERY, 1 SBCT (4 ID), FORT DRUM, NY BAGHDAD, IRAQ 05/11/2006
A soldier with ties to Delaware was killed in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded detonated near his Humvee during a combat patrol.
Private First Class Stephen P. Snowberger III, 18, died Thursday in Baghdad, the Defense Department announced this week. Also killed in the blast was Private First Class Eric D. Clark, 22, of Pleasant Prairie, Wis. A third soldier was injured in the incident, said Clark’s mother, Joanne Marfechuk.
The men were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 6th Field Artillery Regiment, 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. Snowberger grew up in Bear and attended William Penn High School in New Castle.
We never told Stevie goodbye when we talked to him on the phone … his mother, Debbie Brown, who lives in Lexington, N.C., told The (Wilmington) News Journal. It was always, ‘See you later.’ We always expected he’d be back.
Snowberger was killed less than a month after he returned to Iraq from a 15-day leave.
Snowberger attended William Penn until he was 16, when, his mother said, she enrolled him in the Red Rock Job Corps in Pennsylvania. Snowberger spent about a year at the center. He joined the Army at age 17, his mother said. Brown said she was hesitant when he told her he was enlisting.
I said to him, ‘You know what’s going on right now, don’t you?’ And he said, ‘Mom, I’m not afraid of the sandbox.’ That’s how he was, Brown said.
Miles Coleman, an Army Reservist from Florida, was returning home in uniform when he met Stephen P. Snowberger III in a New York airport.
They talked for a couple of hours, swapping stories about life in the Army. When it was time for them to go their separate ways, Coleman asked Snowberger to stay in touch. He did, up until the day he died.
I want you to know that he was a good soldier, Coleman wrote to Debbie Brown, Snowberger’s mother.
Snowberger had wanted to join the military from the time he entered the Red Rock Job Corps Center in November 2003, said Jim McGee, director of the job corps center. Snowberger was thankful for the education and job skills he had gotten from his country and wanted to give back, even to the point of giving his life for his country, McGee said.
He also is survived by his father, Paul.
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