Sunday, May 17, 2009
Steven Hutchison (photo: KNXV-Phoenix)
Steven Hutchison of Scottsdale, AZ, had worked for a health care corporation and as a part-time college instructor before hijackers attacked New York City and Washington, DC, in 2001. Following the September 11 attacks, Hutchison wanted to reenlist in the U.S. Army, even though the last war he fought in ended more than 30 years ago. But the Vietnam veteran was determined to defend his country once again, and after his wife died in 2006, Hutchison rejoined the Army at age 58, commissioned as a major and assigned to the 1st Infantry Division.
Hutchison first was deployed to Afghanistan for a year before going to Iraq last October, where he led a small unit that trained the Iraqi military. Later, he was assigned to guard Iraq’s southern border. It was there that Hutchison, then 60, was killed by a roadside bomb while traveling by truck outside Al Farr, Iraq, becoming not only the oldest Army soldier to die in that conflict, but also the oldest member of any service branch to be killed in Afghanistan or Iraq.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Iraq War Claims Its Oldest Combat Fatality (by Randal C. Archibold, New York Times)
Steven Hutchison : 60-Year-Old US Soldier Oldest Killed In Iraq (by Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press)
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