Cavalry regiment pays honor to fallen trooper

Cavalry regiment pays honor to fallen trooper

By Spc. Chris McCann
2nd BCT PAO, 10th Mtn. Div.


CAMP STRIKER, Iraq – “It seems unfair for a man who had not served even a year in the Army to be taken from us. But it’s young men who die in war.”
Chaplain (Capt.) Danny Wilson’s words hung over the crowd assembled to mourn the death of Thomas Hewett Oct. 21 at Camp Striker.
Hewett, who served in Troop B, 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, died Oct. 13 of wounds suffered in an improvised explosive device detonation Sept. 21.
“Thomas had a family back home … he loved his family more than anything, more than his own life,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Bobulis of Brockton, Mass., Hewett’s section sergeant. “He wouldn’t want us to cry, be sad, or feel sorry for him.”
Hewett enlisted in the Army in 2005, and was assigned to B Troop in January of 2006. The Soldiers of his troop remember his sense of humor.
“He was always quick with a smart remark or a smirk,” said friend Pfc. Jonathan Williams, a native of Mount Pleasant, Texas, who met Hewett while inprocessing at Fort Drum.
He recalled a time that Hewett, sleepy, went into the laundry room instead of his barracks room and crawled up onto his “bunk dryer.”
“He looked so peaceful there, none of us bothered to wake him,” Williams said.
Hewett was also described as an excellent Soldier.
“Thomas was a great (Soldier),” said Sgt. Bryan Dunaway of Hurricane, W. Va., a section sergeant with Troop B. “He never complained, and he went out of his way to make things better. That’s all you can ask of a Soldier.”
Hewett’s only difficulty was with running, his troop mates said.
“We carried him more than he ran,” Williams said. “But he’s running like the wind now, by God. …I want to say thanks to Hewett for being a small part of my life and a large part of my heart.”
“He will be remembered as a good father to his son, a good husband to his wife, and a good Soldier,” Wilson said.
The legendary resting place of cavalry troopers was mentioned only once at the memorial.
“Do me one last favor,” Bobulis asked in an emotional voice. “Mark the way to Fiddler’s Green.”

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