So, my mother calls me today and tells me that a guy from my hometown was killed in Iraq yesterday. I'll be honest and say that it really didn't hit me until I saw it reported in the Milwaukee paper, which is about 100 miles away and couldn't give a rip about Columbus, WI. I didn't know him all that well because he was five years older than me, but I knew his family. They go to our church and I went to high school with his younger sister. His dad ran the bus company that took the kids to school each morning. That's
my pastor, the guy who I used to drive crazy in confirmation classes, being quoted in the state's largest paper. It's weird, Hans was smart, I mean freakishly smart. He could have been anything, done anything with his life. He chose to be a soldier in our Armed Forces. He dedicated his life to protecting me and you, and he and his family paid the ultimate price.
These people are so much better than I am.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar04/214736.asp
12th Wisconsin soldier killed in Iraq
Columbus man had been there less than a month
By MEG JONES
mjones@journalsentinel.com
Posted: March 14, 2004
A Wisconsin soldier who played on his small town's championship football team and graduated from West Point was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq, the military announced Sunday.
Capt. John F. Kurth, 31, of Columbus died Saturday in Tikrit. Kurth and another soldier from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, Spec. Jason C. Ford, 21, of Bowie, Md., were killed in the blast.
Based in Schweinfurt, Germany, for the last three years, Kurth had been in Iraq less than a month. He is the 12th soldier from Wisconsin to die there.
Kurth's parents, John and Lauretta Kurth of Columbus, received an e-mail from their son in Kuwait on Feb. 22, saying his company was going to Iraq.
"He just said they were going to be heading into Iraq and monitoring a section of the highway" in the Tikrit area, Lauretta Kurth said.
Kurth went by the nickname "Hans" because both his father and grandfather share his first name. He spent a week at home during Christmas and attended the wedding of his younger sister, Mandy, last fall in Wisconsin.
At the wedding, Kurth talked with his pastor about Iraq and the rotation of Kurth's infantry unit to relieve troops that had been in the country for a while.
"I said, 'What's your job going to be there?' and he said, 'Pretty much on the ground, patrolling,' " said the Rev. Robert Moberg of Faith Lutheran Church in Columbus.
Kurth previously served with the 82nd Airborne and had been to Kosovo twice, but this was his first duty in Iraq.
He wasn't worried about going to Iraq, his pastor said.
"He was a confident and competent person and thought his soldiers were well-trained. He wasn't looking forward to going, but he didn't seem anxious. He felt that his company was well trained and able to serve there," said Moberg, who has known the Kurth family for 19 years.
Great student, athlete
An excellent student and athlete at Columbus High School, Kurth got a prestigious appointment to West Point by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin). Kurth graduated from West Point in 1995.
Moberg said Kurth surprised his mother and father when, during his junior year in high school, he told them he was thinking about attending one of the military academies.
He first visited the U.S. Naval Academy, then West Point.
"As soon as he saw it, he knew the place was for him," Moberg said. "It's not easy to get in, and that really says a lot about the student he was."
Former Columbus Mayor Michael Eisenga knew Kurth in high school and learned of his death during services Sunday at United Methodist Church in Columbus. Eisenga was a year ahead of Kurth.
"We were all pretty shocked. It's a real blow to the community," said Eisenga, who left office last year as mayor of the community of 4,500 about 20 miles northeast of Madison.
A 1991 Columbus High School graduate, Kurth played on his school's football team that won a state championship. He also ran track.
"He had a great sense of humor. He was a lot of fun. He was always very lighthearted," Eisenga said. "The community is very proud of what he's done. We're going to miss him."
Kurth's family has lived in Columbus for generations. Kurth Brewery was started by his great-grandfather, also John, who built a mansion still known as Kurth Mansion in Columbus. The brewery was a booming business at the turn of the last century but shut down during Prohibition and never reopened.
Kurth's father owned the company that operated the school buses in the Columbus School District.
Kurth loved the military and was proud of his unit, his pastor said. Kurth was also considering a return to the military academy where he learned to become a soldier.
"His sister was saying that when he was home, he was talking about West Point and how much he enjoyed his time there and about how he wanted to go back and teach there some day. So it sounded like he wanted to make it a career," Moberg said. "He really was very much at home there."
Kind of puts things in perspective...
