Army Chief Warrant Officer Clint J. Prather, 32, of Cheney, Washington.
CWO2 Prather died in Ghazni, Afghanistan, when the CH-47 helicopter he was on crashed. He was assigned to the 5th Battalion, 159th Aviation Regiment, 12th Aviation Brigade, Giebelstadt, Germany.
Prather, a chief warrant officer, had served a year in Iraq and went to Afghanistan in February. He joined the Army in 1992 and planned to make the military a career.
Prather had served as a medic before he was trained as a helicopter pilot in 2001.
CWO2 Clint J. Prather, 32, was a native of Cheney, Wash., and enlisted to serve as a combat medic in the Persian Gulf War. He served in South Korea and later in Fort Gordon, Ga., where he met and married his wife, Irene.
He flew 240 hours of combat missions in Iraq, flying mainly out of Balad. In Afghanistan, Prather logged nearly 100 hours of combat flight time in one month.
His awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, two Air Medals, the Army Commendation Medal and a posthumous Bronze Star.
Prather was “a charismatic joker” who “had a way of commanding a room,” Wilhelm said. Chief Warrant Officer 3 John Sims said Prather could have transferred out of the unit after serving a stint in Iraq, but volunteered to stay on, knowing it was headed for Afghanistan.
Army Chief Warrant Officer Clint J. Prather was killed in action on 04/06/05.
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