Mainland burials
set for troops

Services are planned
for isle-based soldiers
killed in Afghanistan

Two Schofield Barracks soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan in separate incidents will be buried on the mainland today.

Funeral services for a third soldier are planned for tomorrow, and no date has been set for a fourth Schofield soldier who was killed Friday.

Army Chief Warrant Officer Travis W. Grogan, 31, was killed Nov. 27 when the airplane he was in crashed into mountainous terrain near Bamian. Funeral services for Grogan, who was a helicopter pilot with the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, will be held at First Baptist Church in Moore, Okla. Burial will be at Fort Sill National Cemetery.

Grogan was not supposed to be in the aircraft, but climbed aboard when a logistics meeting was canceled, his grandmother Wilma North, of Moore, told the Enid News.

He is survived by wife Tracy; two children -- Ashley, 6, and Austin, 2 -- of Hawaii; and his mother and father.

Grogan comes from a long line of military men, his grandmother said. His great-great-great-grandfather lost an eye in the Civil War. Grogan spent nine years in the Navy as a search-and-rescue swimmer before transferring to the Army to become a helicopter pilot.

In Texas, Spc. Isaac E. Diaz, 26, will be buried near sugar cane fields outside his home in the tiny community of Lozano, near the Mexican border.

Diaz was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment. He was killed Dec. 1 when his Humvee overturned.

Funeral services for Lt. Col. Michael McMahon, commander of the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, will be held tomorrow at West Point, where he graduated in 1985. He was also a passenger in the airplane crash.

Funeral arrangements are pending for Schofield Barracks' Spc. David Mahlenbrock, 20, of Maple Shade, N.J. Mahlenbrock, who wanted country music star Toby Keith's "American Soldier'' to be played at his funeral, had that request honored by his comrades in Iraq yesterday at a memorial service.

Mahlenbrock, a combat engineer with the 65th Engineer Battalion, was killed Friday in Kirkuk by an explosive device.

The Burlington County Times reported yesterday that five months ago, Mahlenbrock left a letter with his fellow squad members that said: "If you're reading this, then I've died for our country. I just hope it wasn't for nothing."

In the handwritten letter, he said: "I'd like to have a military funeral, but if you can work (it), please make sure that Toby Keith's 'American Soldier' is played at the ceremony in addition to the bagpipes. If they won't let it happen, that's OK, thanks for trying."

Soldiers' Angels, a Nevada-based nonprofit group that supports U.S. military personnel and their families, hopes to honor Mahlenbrock's requests when he is buried on the mainland.

Viktoria Carter, the organization's director of public relations, told the newspaper she was so touched by Mahlenbrock's letter that she contacted Keith's managers to ask if he could personally sing "American Soldier" during the funeral, which is pending.

His widow, Melissa, told the Burlington County paper that their 10-week-old daughter, Kadence, met her dad once during a two-week visit when she was just days old.

The couple had planned for a large wedding on Dec. 21, 2003, but was forced to scrap the plans when Mahlenbrock got orders for Iraq. They were married by a justice of the peace in Hawaii on Aug. 6, 2003.

The couple met when they were 9 and dated since they were 14. They got engaged at 16 and their love never wavered, Melissa Mahlenbrock said.