Pfc. Ricky Salas remembered

Photo By Spc. Richard Vogt | Soldiers attended a memorial for Private 1st Class Ricky Salas Jr., team member, 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division in Tal Afar, Iraq on March 11, 2006. Photo by Spc. Richard Vogt, 138th MPAD  

TAL AFAR, IRAQ

03.20.2006

Courtesy Story

345th Public Affairs Detachment

Story and photos by Spc. Richard Vogt
138th MPAD

FORT TAL AFAR, Iraq (March 11, 2006) -- Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division gathered here on March 11, 2006 to honor and remember Private 1st Class Ricky Salas Jr.

Chaplain Lewis Messinger, an army captain, began the service with an invocation.

"Give to the Soldiers of Charlie Company a double portion of your grace and peace today and in the weeks and months ahead. Help us finish the mission that our friend and brother began with us," Messinger said. "That despite his loss, or perhaps because of it, we may leave this world having made it a better place just as Pfc. Salas has. Amen."

Cpt. Marvin Atchinson, company commander, Co. C, 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, gave a memorial tribute to Salas.

"This is one of the hardest things I've had to do since becoming the company commander," Atchinson said. "It's something I wish I never had to doâ?¦Pfc. Salas did not do his job for fame or reward. He did it for his fellow Soldiers. I'm truly sorry that his wife will not be able to hug him again and his children will not grow up with their father. But I would tell his family that Ricky was a great Soldier, and truly a part of my family and will be forever."

"The one thing I'll always remember about Ricky is that he was always smiling, he was always building something out at the Dixie House [where he lived with Co. C]," Salas's friend Spc. Casey Shannon said. "I just wish I could spend more nights with Ricky on guard, trading hunting stories, or just whacking away at golf balls over the berm. Salas was a great person and he will be greatly missed."

At the end of the ceremony, an honor guard fired a 21-gun salute, which was followed by "Taps."

Salas's awards include the Combat Action Badge, Purple Heart, Bronze Star Medal, Iraqi Campaign Medal, National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.

Salas was born on Oct. 19, 1983 in Lubbock, Texas, and is survived by his wife April, his daughter Jordan, his son Jared, and his parents, Ricky Salas and Brenda Robertson.

• Date Taken: 03.20.2006
• Date Posted: 03.20.2006 12:31
• Story ID: 5780
• Location: TAL AFAR, IQ