DoD Identifies Army Casualties
The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died on Sep. 3 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle during combat operations. Both soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Wurzburg, Germany.
Killed were:
Sgt. Jason L. Merrill, 22, of Mesa, Ariz.
PFC Edwin A. Andino II, 23, of Culpeper, Va.
23-Year-Old Culpeper Man Killed in Iraq
CULPEPER, Va. - A 23-year-old soldier from Culpeper died when an explosive device went off near his vehicle, Pentagon officials said.
Pvt. Edwin A. Andino II died Sept. 3, about a month after he arrived in Iraq and exactly one year after he enlisted in the Army.
“He died doing what he wanted to do,” and had just been promoted before his death, said his uncle, Dean Settle.
The Pentagon said Andino was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in Wurzburg, Germany. Andino received a posthumous Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.
“He believed in why we were there,” Andino’s friend Chad Robison told the Culpeper Star-Exponent. “Even though me and some of my other friends would disagree, he still believed in the reason why he was going. Thats what made him a hero to me.”
Survivors include his mother, Cathy J. Andino and his father, Edwin A. Andino.
Va. Soldier Killed by Explosive Device
By Sandhya Somashekhar and Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 9, 2006; Page A12Army Pvt. Edwin A. Andino II could sleep through anything.
He didn’t wake up the evening his friend began playing drums just a few inches from where he slept.
And he didn’t wake the first night an improvised explosive device went off near his Army barracks in Eastern Baghdad.
“We tell that story, and we laugh. And then we use it to remember what kind of a good kid he was, then we laugh some more,” said an uncle, H. Dean Settle of Lovettsville.
Andino, who was known as E.J. to his friends, died Sunday when a similar device exploded near his vehicle during combat operations, according to the Pentagon. He was joining in a counterattack after a mortar round was lobbed at his base camp, Settle said. He was 23 and had been in Iraq for 30 days.
Andino, a Culpeper, Va., native, graduated from high school in Madison County in 2001, friends said. He worked as a cook at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant before going to work for a friend’s construction company.
He enlisted in the Army on Sept. 3, 2005, exactly one year before the date of his death, said Chad Robison, a friend. Andino had been telling friends that he was interested in joining the military, to “expand his options and to make his mom and his granddad proud,” Robison said.
“I told him, ‘If that’s what you want to do, man, do it. It could be good for you,’ ” Robison said. “Everyone was proud of him when he did.”
Another friend and fellow band member, Jeff Parks, said Andino “was excited” about going to Iraq. “He put it out like, ‘This is what I’ve been training for. This is what I’ve got to do.’ ”
“That was his whole attitude,” Parks said. “He wanted to make a difference.”
Parks said “everybody kind of lost a friend” with Andino’s death.
“He was a guy who cared about everything. Pretty much somebody you could definitely count on, who’d always be there to help you out,” Parks said.
Andino came from a military family, Settle said, adding that he and Andino’s grandfather were among Andino’s role models growing up. The family was proud, he said, when Andino decided to carry on the tradition.
“E.J. had his trials, and he put his family through trials,” Settle said. “But when he joined the Army, everything he learned from his family came out.”
Andino was a skilled guitarist and a fan of heavy metal music. He and Robison, a drummer, played in a band called “Flatline” with Parks and another friend, Robison said. Andino’s friends met Monday for a farewell tribute jam, Robison said. It ended with the Black Sabbath song “Paranoid” — one of Andino’s favorites.
“He was a beautiful soul,” Robison said. “He was just a great guy. Nobody could say anything bad about him.”
The Pentagon said Andino was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in Wurzburg, Germany.
Survivors include his mother, Cathy J. Andino of Culpeper; his father, Edwin A. Andino; and grandparents Hazel and H.R. Settle, also of Culpeper.
One year ago today Pfc. Edwin Anthony Andino Jr. had just joined the U.S. Army and was headed for basic training in Fort Knox, Ky.
On Sunday, the 23-year-old Culpeper resident, known as E.J., died while responding to a mortar attack against a U.S. Army camp in Baghdad.
Andino is the second wartime fatality from Culpeper County since the Vietnam War. Second Lt. Leonard Cowherd, 23, was fatally shot in Karbala, Iraq, May 16, 2004.
A 2001 graduate of Madison County High School, Andino was the only son of Cathy Jean Andino, of Reva, and Edwin Anthony Andino, of Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Department of Defense has not yet released the specifics of Andino’s death. However, according to family spokesman and Andino’s uncle, Dean Settle, the U.S. Army indicated that Andino and several other soldiers were killed around 6:30 a.m. Baghdad time when their Humvee hit an enemy-planted improvised explosive device.
Settle said it is unclear if Andino volunteered for the mission or was part of a team ordered to take part in stopping the attack.
“He died doing what he wanted to do,†Settle said, adding that Andino, of the 1st Battalion 77th Armored Division, had just been promoted to “Private First Class†after excelling in his training weeks before. He had been in Iraq only 30 days.
“He was being groomed to be a leader in his platoon,†Settle said.
Prior to his promotion, Andino was awarded the Army Achievement Medal. He received a posthumous Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for valor.
“He believed in what he was doing and we supported him that way,†Settle said. “We’re very proud of him.â€Â
Chad Robison, Andino’s best friend, said he considered Andino a hero because he volunteered for 18 months of combat service in Iraq. While he had been stationed in Germany, Robison said Andino knew he would be headed for Iraq, but he could select his length of service there from between four and 18 months.
Robison, 29, said Andino joined the Army to make his mom and granddad proud. He was working construction at the time and wanted some options in life. He felt the military would open those doors for him, Robison said.
“He made this decision and everybody was proud of him,†Robison said. “We just thought we would see him again. He believed in why we were there. Even though me and some of my other friends would disagree, he still believed in the reason why he was going. That’s what made him a hero to me. He really thought he was doing good and had a real reason to be there.â€Â
The two became friends the night Andino auditioned for Robison’s heavy metal band, “Flatline.†Andino was an avid guitar player and especially enjoyed heavy metal music.
“We were a package and that was said over and over again,†Robison said. “We were a package deal because we were so tight with each other. We were such good friends and we fit so good musically that if a band wanted me to drum for them, he was coming with me.â€Â
Robison and Andino later worked together for a development company while they still played in another full-time band. Robison said Andino was a hard worker but he also made everything fun. He was most impressed with Andino’s loyal friendship and his dedication to his family.
“He was really close with his mom,†Robison said. “He would always tell me how proud he was of his mom and how good of a job she did raising him because his dad lived in New York all his life, so his mom raised him on her own. He was a momma’s boy. He always talked about his mom.â€Â
Robison said he’ll miss everything about Andino, even the way he would get mad.
“Sometimes you meet people in life that you felt like you’ve known forever,†Robison said. “You feel almost related to them, but of course you’re not. He was one of those guys.â€Â
Jennifer Driggers said her life will also be forever changed by Andino’s death.Driggers, 23, was Andino’s girlfriend for three years and said they had had private discussions about a possible engagement in the future.
“He was my life,†she said. “He was my soul.â€Â
Andino and Driggers met at Ruby Tuesday about three and half years ago. However, they also were in the same third grade class 15 years ago.“He was the little kid that would chase me with the erasers or pinch me in the butt in the lunch line,†Driggers said.
But for Driggers, their relationship was far more than child’s play. On their first date they ate pizza and watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre - his choice. When the relationship became more serious, they moved into his mother’s house and then an apartment in Friendship Heights for about two years before he joined the military.
Driggers said she’ll miss the everyday events of their lives. She used to wake up with him daily at 4 a.m. to make his coffee, and sometimes his lunch, before he went to work construction.
Monday through Wednesday she was allowed to choose what they would watch on television and Thursday through Saturday, Andino would choose. Sundays they compromised or watched a movie together. When he told her he wanted to join the Army, she helped him study every night before he took his test.
“I would not let him leave until he got all the questions right,†Driggers said. “I drilled it into his head. I think I got on his nerves, but I wouldn’t let him give up. He said if it weren’t for me he wouldn’t have passed the test because I sat up with him every night making sure he studied.â€Â
Driggers was willing to follow Andino anywhere.
“I told him I would be there and stand by him through everything,†she said.Driggers said she admired Andino’s devotion to his country, his blatant honesty and how he always protected and took care of her.
She’ll miss him, but she knows Andino died doing what he wanted most.
“Everybody who knew E.J., everybody who saw him when he came home could just see how much he had grown as a person; how much of a man he had become and how he definitely took pride in what he was doing,†Driggers said of when Andino came home on leave. “He wanted to make sure he got the opportunity to go over to Iraq. That is all he wanted to do.â€Â
Liz Mitchell can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 110 or emitchell@starexponent.com.
Edwin Anthony Andino Jr.
Pfc. Andino, 23, died Sunday in Baghdad when the Humvee he was traveling in hit an enemy-planted improvised expolsive device, his uncle said. Andino, known as E.J., had been in Iraq only 30 days.
The only son of Cathy Jean Andino, of Reva, and Edwin Anthony Andino, of Brooklyn, N.Y., E.J. was a 2001 Madison County High School graduate.
By Matt Millham, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Sunday, September 10, 2006The Department of Defense on Friday identified two soldiers with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division who were killed Sept. 3 in Baghdad.
Sgt. Jason L. Merrill, 22, of Mesa, Ariz., and Pvt. Edwin A. Andino II, 23, of Culpeper, Va., died when a makeshift bomb detonated near their Humvee.
Both were members of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, based in Schweinfurt, Germany. The battalion was the first part of the 2nd Brigade deployed to Iraq. They began moving to Baghdad from Kuwait in mid-August.
Merrill already had one Iraq deployment under his belt when he headed back to Iraq. The deployment was Andino’s first.
H. Dean Settle, an uncle of Andino’s, told The Washington Post the two soldiers were killed while engaged in a counterattack after a mortar round struck their base camp.
Merrill’s father, Tim, told The Arizona Republic his son transformed from a listless teenager to a young man with a mission after enlisting in the Army four years ago.
“I was very proud of what he had become. He went from being a boy to being a man,†he was quoted by the newspaper.
Merrill was scheduled to get out of the Army this month, but his time in service was extended when his unit was sent to Iraq Aug. 15, according to the Republic.
After Merrill’s first deployment to Iraq, he told his family he wanted to become a pediatrician, the newspaper reported. His father said his son always had a soft spot for children and was moved to help them by the horrors he witnessed in Iraq, according to the report.
Andino enlisted in the Army on Sept. 3, 2005, Chad Robinson, a friend of Andino’s, told the Post.
“I told him, ‘If that’s what you want to do, man, do it. It could be good for you,’ †Robison was quoted saying. “Everyone was proud of him when he did.â€Â
Settle told the Post that Andino could sleep through anything, and that he didn’t wake up even when a makeshift bomb exploded near his barracks in eastern Baghdad during his first night there.
“We tell that story, and we laugh. And then we use it to remember what kind of a good kid he was, then we laugh some more,†Settle said.
