Army Specialist Darryl W. Linder

Remember Our Heroes

Army Specialist Darryl W. Linder, 23, of Hickory, N.C.

Spc. Linder was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; died June 19,2007 in Baqubah, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.

N.C. man killed in Iraq
The Associated Press

HICKORY, N.C. — A North Carolina man has died from wounds suffered from a roadside bomb that exploded in Iraq, the military said June 20.

Army Spec. Darryl Wardlaw “Ward” Linder, 24, died June 19 in Baqubah, the Defense Department said. Wardlaw was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

Linder joined the Marine Corps in 2001 and served in Afghanistan. After working for his father briefly, he enlisted in the Army and deployed to Iraq in January.

“He said he wanted to go to Iraq,” said his father, Darryl Linder. “There was nothing here as exciting. He was very much a patriot.”

His survivors include a 3-year-old son, Kyle.

Darryl Linder last talked to his son on Father’s Day. The next news about his son came when an Army chaplain visited the family June 19.

Linder, who graduated from Fred T. Foard High School, excelled in football and baseball in high school, said his lifelong friend, Jeff Fulbright. He also liked to hunt, fish, go camping and bowl.

“He had a magnetism that attracted everybody,” Darryl Linder said.

In the midst of combat, Ward wrote a Mother’s Day card on a pack of meals ready to eat and mailed it home.

He was due to come home on leave next month.

Army Specialist Darryl W. Linder was killed in action on 6/19/07.





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