[ WAR IN IRAQ ]
In Kaneohe, brother CLEVELAND >> The family of a soldier killed in an ambush in the Iraq war is pressing for answers about how he died.
waits for answers
Associated Press
First Sgt. Robert Dowdy, 38, of Cleveland, was reported missing in the ambush March 23. The Pentagon said on April 5 that he had been killed.
His family hopes to learn how Dowdy's 507th Maintenance Company made a wrong turn, heading into an unguarded area and an ambush. They also want to know if he was killed in the ambush or later.
"I'm hoping down the road, maybe after the war's complete, that a lot of these questions can be answered," said Robert's brother Jack Dowdy Jr., 40, of Kaneohe. "I think it would bring closure."
Dowdy's funeral will be Tuesday at St. John Nepomucene Roman Catholic Church in Cleveland.
"We have videos of him, we have pictures of him," said sister Roxane Dowdy, 42, of Cleveland. "It's very hard to face the reality that he's really gone."
Dowdy graduated from South High School in 1982 and soon joined the Army, enabling him to get an education and follow an example set by his older brother, Jack, an ex-Marine.
Dowdy rose to master sergeant in his 18 years in the Army but never saw combat. When the war buildup began, he volunteered for duty in Kuwait, taking the place of a comrade who wanted to stay with family at Fort Bliss, Texas. Dowdy was 18 months away from retirement.
In his last message from the Persian Gulf, a few days before fighting began in Iraq, Dowdy said he had been promoted to first sergeant and was headed to Iraq. In his last e-mail, he prepared the family for the possibility that he might not return.
On the day his son was reported missing, Jack Dowdy Sr., 63, woke up to radio news. An Army maintenance unit had been ambushed near the Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. There were few details.
Jack Sr. knew his son was with the 507th Maintenance Company out of Fort Bliss, a unit that repairs heavy equipment and vehicles. He turned on the television to learn more.
"I'm thinking maybe they'll give the number," he recalled. "I'm hoping it's not him, his group. They say 507th. That's it -- I really got worried."
Dowdy's family studied the footage from Arabic satellite network al-Jazeera of five prisoners of war and images of dead soldiers.
That night, an Army representative visited Jack Sr. and his wife of 43 years, Irene, to tell them that Robert was missing.
Roxane and her brother Jim Dowdy, 36, of Cleveland, downloaded and had enlarged images of the dead soldiers from the Internet and studied them. One body looked like their brother, except for what looked like a tattoo.
The tattoo turned out to be dried blood, but they never knew whether it was him.
Hawaii military links and information