Number 79

Kentucky's 79th casualty in the Iraq Clusterfuck is a 30-year-old Army sergeant from Scottsville, on the Tennessee border.

Joshua A. Ward was killed along with three other soldiers by a suicide car bomb in Mosul, Iraq, on Feb. 9.

Ward was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division of Fort Hood, Texas. The brigade deployed to Iraq in December and is on its third tour in Iraq.

The Associated Press reported that the explosion came as American vehicles were passing near an Iraqi police checkpoint. It was the deadliest single attack against American forces in Iraq in nine months.

According to various news reports, Ward is survived by his parents, Patti and John, sister Brandi Ward and brother Johnny Ward, all residents of Matagorda, Texas; and older brothers Ben and Eric of the Houston area.


He had two sons - 9-year-old Joshua Allen Ward Jr. and 7-year-old Zane Tyler Ward - with their mother, Misty Ward, in Scottsville. News accounts also mentioned a girlfriend of 11 months, Diana Gunderson, and another son expected in July.

Joshua Ward’s sister Brandi was quoted as saying he graduated from Needville (Texas) High School in 1997 and received a football scholarship to Texas A&M-Blinn College, but a car accident that shattered his elbow prevented him from going.

He enlisted in the Army shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and was due to be discharged in September.

According to the Fort Bend Herald, Ward and Gunderson were planning to move back to Kentucky after his discharge.

(His mother) Patti said she sensed Saturday that her son knew he was about to die. He routinely called home every three days, but he made three calls Saturday.

“I talk to him every day by e-mail. We meet on Yahoo every morning and we’d text each other throughout the day,” Patti said.

Joshua told his mother he was going on a mission and they’d talk Monday, when he returned.

“Monday morning when I got out of bed, something was wrong immediately. I went to the computer and his name wasn’t lit up,” Patti said, bursting into tears. “I texted him and said, ‘You really need to call me right away,’ and he never contacted me. It was 3 o’clock that afternoon when I got the call.”

“It was his third deployment and I just knew he wasn’t going to come home this time,” Patti said.