Number 80

Staff Sergeant Gary L. Woods, Jr. was four months away from the end of his third Iraq tour when he was killed by a suicide bomber in Mosul.

The 24-year-old Shepherdsville native was looking forward to settling down with his wife and starting a family, according to the Courier-Journal.

Woods’ father, Gary Woods Sr., said that his son, who went by his middle name, Lee, was a talented musician who sang and played the trombone, drums, piano and guitar while a student at Bullitt Central High School. He was also a member of the school’s football team.

But after finding satisfaction in ROTC classes, his son entered the military after high school, he said.

“He joined the Army just as we were going into the second gulf war,” Woods Sr. said by telephone from his home in Lebanon Junction. “He knew the chances were that we’d still be in it, but he was convinced that’s what he wanted.”

Woods rose to staff sergeant and was leading the soldiers’ mission the day they died, his father said.

SNIP

“I want everyone to know what a good man he was.”

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