Son wanted ‘to get the hell out of Iraq’
by Blake Morlock on Feb. 06, 2007, under Local, Nation/World
McPeek
The Tucson area lost another soldier – another Mountain View High School 2004 graduate – during weekend fighting in Iraq.
Spc. Alan E. McPeek, 20, died Friday of injuries from small-arms fire during a battle in Ramadi, Iraq, a Department of Defense release said. Ramadi is in Anbar province, about 100 miles west of Baghdad, where Sunnis hostile to U.S. forces have holed up for three years.
McPeek had been scheduled to leave Iraq, but his unit, the 1st Armored Division, was kept there after Ramadi came under attack by insurgents.
A posting from McPeek’s father on his son’s MySpace page thanked friends for their condolences. His father could not be reached for comment.
“You all are the reason he so wanted to get the hell out of Iraq,” the posting said. “Most of you know that he had already served his required time there and should have been safe in Germany when this happened.”
Fellow Mountain View grad Michael Travers knew McPeek throughout high school and kept in touch with him. Travers called McPeek a “great guy with a really good heart and good spirit.”
“He was really outgoing,” Travers said. “He would just do crazy things.”
Mountain View grads are a closely knit group, Travers said, and McPeek was friends with Pfc. Sam Williams Huff and Navy Hospitalman Chadwick Thomas Kenyon. They all graduated in 2004, and all died in Iraq.
The word about McPeek spread fast through a network of old friends who keep losing buddies, Travers said.
“That’s probably the first thing out of people’s mouths after we talked about Alan is how all three of them passed away,” he said.
THE WARS’ TOLL ON MOUNTAIN VIEW HIGH SCHOOL
Mountain View High School students/graduates killed in Iraq and Afghanistan:
● U.S. Army Pfc. Sam Williams Huff, 18, died April 17, 2005, when the Humvee she was driving was hit by a roadside bomb near Baghdad. Mountain View class of 2004.
● U.S. Navy Hospitalman Chadwick Thomas Kenyon, 20, died Aug. 20, 2006, in Anbar province, Iraq. His vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device while he was conducting combat operations against enemy forces. Mountain View class of 2004.
● U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Budd M. Cote, 21, died Dec. 11, 2006, when the Humvee he was riding in was hit a roadside bomb in Anbar province, Iraq. Cote attended Marana and Mountain View high schools before moving temporarily to Las Vegas. He returned to Tucson and attended Canyon del Oro High School, but dropped out and got his GED before joining the Marines.
● U.S. Army Sgt. Kenneth G. Ross, 24, died Sept. 24, 2005, in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan’s Deh Chopan district, 180 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul. Mountain View class of 1999.
