Army Pfc. Amy R. Sinkler

Remember Our Heroes

Army Pfc. Amy R. Sinkler, 23, of Chadbourn, N.C.

Pfc. Sinkler was assigned to the 17th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Fort Richardson, Alaska; died Jan. 20, 2011 in Baghlan province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked her unit with a rocket propelled grenade.

Sinkler, 23, from Chadbourn, N.C., was the second female soldier and third overall from the 109th Transportation Co., the "Rough Riders," to die in combat since the 150-soldier unit deployed in July. A gunner for the mission, she was in the exposed turret of an armored MRAP vehicle when it was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, the Army said. Three other soldiers in the vehicle were uninjured.

Sinkler was married. She arrived at Fort Richardson in January 2010 after joining the Army in August 2009. Her family has been notified of her death, the Army said.
Sinkler, a motor transport operator, was in a convoy en route to Forward Operating Base Killaghey in Baghlan Province on Wednesday when the attack occurred about 11:40 p.m. Afghanistan time. She died less than four hours later.

I am not sure how I ever could function as a journalist before the inception of Facebook.

I first joined the Social Network in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. Being that nearly every horrific thing has ties to Tampa, I signed up hoping to find students at the school from our area. I don’t think I did, but it has been a powerful reporting tool for me ever since.

Which is why, when I learned about 23-year-old Amy Sinkler, the first woman to die in combat this year, I turned to Facebook to see what I could find out about her. As is usually the case, the Social Network did not let me down.

I learned this much about Sinkler. She loved and missed her husband. She apparently recently found her father and her sister was about to have a baby. Her last post came Tuesday at 9:03 a.m. She wrote about how she knew what her sister was having a girl. “ok u had on ur page its a gurl lol,” she wrote.

Two days later, Sinkler was killed when insurgents attacked her unit with a rocket propelled grenade. Later that day, Sinkler’s friends began leaving heartfelt messages on her “wall.”

“AMY I MISS U SO MUCH! I CNT STOP THINKIN ABT U @ ALL THA FUN TIMES WE USED 2 HAVE,” wrote one friend “...REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN WE WENT 2 THA HEALTH DEPARTMENT @ U RAN THAT SIGN OVA?! LOL! REMEMBER WHEN I WAS STUDYIN 2 TAKE MY ASVAB TEST SO THAT WE COULD GO 2 ...BASIC IN THA BUDDY SYSTEM? I REALLY WISH THAT I COULD WAKE UP FRM THIS THAT SEEMS LIKE A TERRIBL NITEMARE! I KNW THAT UR OK WHERE U R NOW…THIS LIFE WAS ONLY PART OF THA JOURNEY THAT OUR SPIRIT MUST TAKE @ U HAVE FINALLY MADE IT HOME. UR FAMILY IS IN MY PRAYERS @ IM HERE IF THEY NEED ME 4 ANYTHING WHATSOEVA. IMA TAG A PIC OF U 2 HAVE ON MY PAGE…I KNW U WNT MIND. I LOVE U GIRL @ I WIL SEE U WHEN I GET HOME ...”

Brittany Rahman, Sinkler's best friend going back to their childhood days reported this: She was a good person, very strong-minded. Some people try to hold back their feelings or their thoughts. That's not Amy. She's going to tell you exactly how she's feeling.

The girls graduated high school one year apart. After graduation they wanted to see the world and decided to go talk to a recruiter. We were like, 'Hey let's try it, just to see the world, just try something different'. "Basically, we were in our hometown forever. We grew up there, didn't travel much, so we wanted to get away and see different stuff.

Rahman said Sinkler liked her experience in the Army and was proud when she completed her training. Sinkler married her high school boyfriend, Doug Sinkler, last year, and they settled in at the post just north of Anchorage, she said. She bought a nice little car, so she got stable. I think she actually liked Alaska, but she wasn't there much longer.

Army Pfc. Amy R. Sinkler was killed in action on 1/20/11.