Army Sgt. Elijah J. Rao

Remember Our Heroes

Army Sgt. Elijah J. Rao, 26, of Lake Oswego, Ore.

Sgt. Rao was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.; died Dec. 5, 2009 in Nuristan, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

The Gazette -- A 26-year-old Fort Carson soldier was killed Saturday when his unit was attacked with an improvised explosive device in Nuristan province, Afghanistan, the Department of Defense announced this evening.

Sgt. Elijah J. Rao, of Lake Oswego, Ore., was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. He is survived by a wife, Leah, and a 1-year-old daughter, The Oregonian newsPaper reported. His family remained at Fort Sill, Okla., when he was reassigned to Fort Carson and deployed in June to Afghanistan, the newsPaper said.

Rao was the 35th soldier from Fort Carson to die in Afghanistan, pushing the total number of Fort Carson’s war deaths to 290.

“He was a kind, loving, honorable man and will be missed dearly by our family and all those that he touched with his gentle spirit,” Cicily Ulrich, who identified herself as Rao’s sister,said in a blog post earlier this week.

Rao served a previous tour in Iraq from October 2006 to December 2007 before deploying to Afghanistan in June. He was scheduled to return home on leave in January and would have completed his tour in May, the blog entry said.

He was a field artillery meteorological crewmember. His mother, Sharon Heuerken of Vancouver, Wash., told The Oregonian that he repaired meteorological equipment. He was hit by an explosive after stepping out of his truck at the site of an earlier bombing, she said.

“As a family, we are so proud of Elijah,” she was quoted as saying in The Oregonian. “He was an honorable son, grandson, brother, uncle, husband, father, soldier and hero. We were lucky to have him.”

Army Sgt. Elijah J. Rao was killed in action on 12/05/09.