Fallen Story
Shortly after arriving in Iraq with his Army unit, Blain Matthew Ebert asked people in his hometown to send clothes and shoes for Iraqi children and the residents responded with box after box of that and more. "He spent every moment over there worrying about those people," said his father, Michael Ebert. "In his eyes, love and the future of Iraq were going to come through the Iraqi children." Ebert, 22, of Washtucna, Wash. died Nov. 22 in a hostile attack. He was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. Raised on his family's wheat farm, Ebert loved farming, deer hunting, snowmobiling and football. He joined the Army before graduating from high school and was married two years later to his wife, Shalanta. He was injured last month when a car bomb exploded near his tank. But after a couple weeks of desk work nursing a bruised eardrum and sore back, he asked to be returned to combat, his father said. Ebert popped his head out of his tank's command hatch and "a sniper got him," his father said