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Rex Rogers
Gresham, Oregon
Specialist Philip Rogers, 23, left, loved to cook. In fact, he had aspirations to go to culinary school someday. His father, Rex Rogers, said that he was also a gifted artist who was drawing before he hit Kindergarten. But Philip’s most important goal to date—and one for which, over the course of his almost five years in the military, he had received 11 medals—was to protect his country and to aid his fellow soldier.
“He was a very responsible young man,” said Rex. “I was a single parent, and he helped me raise his brother and sister. When he went to war, he carried that same sense of responsibility with him. On the day he died, he volunteered to take a sick driver’s route in order to deliver supplies to the Syrian border. Four days before he was killed, he received a Bronze Star for covering the soldiers in his unit so they could pull back to safety. They tell me it’s unusual for a kid who was only in the service for less than five years, to receive so many medals. But that’s just the kind of young man he was.”
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News
- [Philip Rogers] died April 4, [2004] four days after celebrating his 23rd birthday, in Mosul, Iraq, when a roadside bomb detonated under the truck he had volunteered to drive in a convoy. Rogers was assigned to the Army's 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, out of Ft. Lewis, Wash.
A quiet man who volunteered at his family's Baptist church, he re-enlisted twice to help pay off his car and build up his college fund, said his father, Rex.
"He enjoyed military life and he was doing so good in there," his father said. Chicago Tribune, 5/13/04
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