Army Spc. Andre D. Mitchell

Remember Our Heroes

Army Spc. Andre D. Mitchell, 25, of Elmont, N.Y.

Spc. Mitchell was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas; died July 31, 2008 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries sustained in a vehicle accident.

Newsday -- From the time he was a teenager, Andre Darnell Mitchell wanted to be a soldier.



He told his mother, Yasmin Patterson, of Elmont, that he was bored working in audiovisual services at the Marriott Hotel in Uniondale and for a caterer in Queens Village on weekends.

So on Valentine's Day 2006, he joined the Army.

"At 15, 16, that's what he wanted to do," Patterson said Saturday night.

On Thursday, Mitchell, 25, was killed when the Humvee he was riding in overturned in Mosul, Iraq.

Patterson said the Army told her the Humvee overturned on a sharp curve.

Mitchell's body was scheduled to be flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware Saturday night.

"I said, 'Please go to college, and after that, you can do what you want to do,'" Patterson said.

Mitchell was a 2003 graduate of Sewanhaka High School in Floral Park and a 2005 graduate of Nassau Community College.

It appears Mitchell couldn't wait to enlist. First, he talked to Air Force recruiters before meeting with an Army representative. When the Army said it could take him sooner, he signed up, his mother said.

Mitchell trained for 14 months at Fort Hood, Texas, and deployed to Iraq in November.

Patterson called her son a leader and said he was dogged in pursuing his dreams. His goal was to secure a job working for the federal government in Washington, D.C.

Besides his mother, he is survived by a brother, Malique Patterson, 12."I'll always remember his love for his mom and his brother," Patterson said. "He was a great human being. Besides his country, he'd die for his family."

Army Spc. Andre D. Mitchell was killed in a vehicle accident on 7/31/08.