Army Sgt. Stephen Sherman, a former Great Falls resident, was killed while serving in Iraq on February 3, when a homemade bomb exploded near his Stryker vehicle, according to military reporters.
Born in Arlington, he lived in Northern Virginia the first eleven years of his life before moving to New Jersey. Trained as a nuclear, chemical and biological operations specialist, he graduated from High Tech High School in Jupiter, N.J., where he lived with his mother, Bernadette Sherman. He enlisted in the Army in 2003 and had been stationed in Iraq since October after being deployed from his home base of Fort Lewis, Wash.
Prior to this accident, Sherman had survived the tent bombing at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul on Dec. 22, which killed 22 people, including six of his fellow soldiers from Fort Lewis.
Sherman received a degree in business administration from the University of Oregon in 2001, during which time he also spent a semester in Australia as an exchange student.
Statements released by his family describe Sherman as “a great son, grandson, brother, nephew, cousin and a dedicated soldier who was devoted to making the world a better place.”
He was remembered by his father as an adventurous man who hiked in the Rockies, rock climbed in Arizona, sky-dived in New Zealand and “tested his survival skills in the barren deserts of Australia.”
“He was a rock for his mother and me in good times and in bad,” Richard Sherman said of his eldest son. “Even from the combat zone he would call and write to comfort us and urge us not to worry. He was a great inspiration for his brothers and sisters.”
Stephen’s love of music and quick sense of humor “will live on in me, his family and friends,” Richard Sherman said, and the memories of happier times “will help us push away the sorrow and keep his spirit alive in our hearts.”
In addition to his father, he is survived by his mother, two sisters and a brother in Neptune, N.J., where funeral services were held last weekend. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery Monday.
<1b>--Amber Healy