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<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   Related Stories • Gregory J. Billiter • Curtis Hall • Adam McSween • Explosion kills Whidbey sailor serving in Iraq 11/7/07   CONTACT THE HERALD Robert Frank, City Editor frank@heraldnet.com   Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 Three sailors from Whidbey die in Iraq Adam McSween was a leader long before he was a sailor OAK HARBOR - As a teenager, Petty Officer 1st Class Adam McSween spent his weekends at Central Ave. Church of Christ in his hometown, Valdosta, Ga. "He enjoyed, for a long time, just hanging around the church, helping us with projects," said John Klimka, a pastor at the church. McSween led worship and even preached in the homes of elderly or sick church members who couldn't make it to Sunday services. "He would do prayers, song-leading, preaching, and this was when he was in high school," Klimka said. McSween told his pastor he wanted to follow in his footsteps, Klimka said. McSween's real name was Joseph, but everyone knew him as Adam. He went to York College in York, Neb., on a track scholarship, said his mother, Florence Elkins. It was there that the Navy asked him to enlist, Elkins said. The Navy's promise to pay for further education was part of the draw, but the recruiters also sparked a long-held fascination McSween had with explosives. At his mother's insistence, McSween stayed in school and earned an associate degree, then headed off to boot camp. He became an expert in detonating bombs. He died Friday in combat in Iraq. It was his second tour. McSween is survived by his wife, Erin, and his daughters, Lily, 5, and Gwyneth, 2, of Oak Harbor. He attended Oak Harbor Church of Christ, where he was friends with state Rep. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor. "Adam believed in community and he was actively involved in it and in the church," Bailey said. -- Krista J. Kapralos and Jerry Cornfield, Herald writers Gregory Billiter was serving his third tour OAK HARBOR - Gregory Billiter loved the little things in life: playing with his 3-year-old son, Cooper, throwing rocks in the ocean, planting flowers. Chief Petty Officer Billiter, 36, was one of three Whidbey Island sailors who were killed Friday near Kirkuk, Iraq, the Defense Department said Monday. The deaths were a tough blow for the entire Oak Harbor community. However, they hit especially hard in Billiter's tight-knit neighborhood, where nearly everyone knows someone in the service. Neighbors went door to door, collecting money to send Billiter's family in his native Kentucky for his funeral. They brought flowers and cards to his widow, April Billiter. And they cried. "It doesn't make sense," said Cindy McManigle, who has lived across from the Billiters for nearly four years. "It's so sad." Also killed were Petty Officer 2nd Class Curtis R. Hall, 24, of Burley, Idaho, and Petty Officer 1st Class Joseph Adam McSween, 26, of Valdosta, Ga. Billiter, a native of Villa Hills, Ky., had been in the Navy for 15 years and was on his third tour of Iraq. He belonged to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit 11. "He was a wonderful son," his father, Barry Billiter, told the Lexington Herald-Leader in Kentucky on Monday night. He was planning to return to Kentucky in June, his sister, Elizabeth Billiter, told the Herald-Leader. This was supposed to be his last tour in Iraq, she said. April Billiter is a seventh-grade science teacher at North Whidbey Middle School, where she's worked for the past eight years. Administrators there called school staff members on Saturday to notify them of the death, Assistant Principal Shane Evans said. The family's neighbor McManigle described April Billiter as a strong woman. She was pregnant with Cooper during her husband's first tour in Iraq, she said. "Being a military wife, you've really got to be strong and really capable of being independent and capable of caring for yourself and your family, because you just don't know," McManigle said. Gregory Billiter was a 1987 graduate of Covington Latin High School in Covington, Ky. He was a member of St. Joseph Church in Crescent Springs, Ky. The second of six children, he kept in touch with his family in Kentucky by e-mail, his father told the Herald-Leader. "I knew where he was," Barry Billiter said, but added he didn't know the circumstances of his son's death. Billiter planned to become an ordnance disposal trainer after completing his duty overseas, his sister told the Herald-Leader. He joined the Navy, following in his father's footsteps, she said. Barry Billiter served in Vietnam, and his maternal grandfather served in World War II, his sister said. In his Oak Harbor community, he was known as a loving dad who took great pleasure in his son. Though Billiter was somewhat reserved, he and his wife enjoyed entertaining, McManigle said. He always hung Christmas lights on his house shortly after Thanksgiving and enjoyed building things for his family. The death of such a man, a loving husband and doting father, "impacts the town," McManigle said. "It impacts neighborhoods, too. Door by door." -- Kaitlin Manry, Scott Pesznecker, and Associated Press At 14, Curtis Hall saved his father's life OAK HARBOR - Petty Officer 2nd Class Curtis Hall, 24, was the type of man you might expect to volunteer to defuse bombs, to save people. The towering 6-foot-7-inch former high school basketball player "was like a ray of sunshine," said his sister, Brenda Thibeault, 37. "He loved to tease and play, but knew where the line was. He always knew how just to have fun." He was already a hero long before he died in Iraq last week. Video Click here to watch video of Curtis Hall from CBS 2 Eyewitness News in Boise. As a lanky 14-year-old Boy Scout, he was credited with saving his father's life in a terrible rafting accident in the rapids along Idaho's Salmon River. A fierce windstorm worked a boulder loose from a cliff. A chunk split off, hitting Hall's father in his arm and head, breaking his arm and knocking him unconscious. He plunged face-down into the water. Even though the teen himself was hit on the arm and injured by another chunk of rock, he jumped out of the raft in an attempt to save his father. But he couldn't flip him over on his own. One of Hall's older brothers, Randy, 16 at the time, jumped in after them, and together the boys grabbed their father and pulled him to shore. The young men were awarded the Boy Scout's Honor Medal for unusual heroism and skill in saving a life at considerable risk to themselves. Their story was featured in Boys Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, and an article in the local newspaper. A year later, Hall achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts. Years later, the brothers would join the Navy, both serving in combat in Iraq. Randy Hall was wounded in Iraq in 2003 when his Humvee was attacked, killing a sailor beside him. He is now attending college in Dillon, Mont. The Navy has agreed to fly him to a military mortuary in Dover, Del., this week to escort his brother's body to their family home in Idaho. Thibeault, 37, said saving their father's life was characteristic of her fallen brother, who would later volunteer for the dangerous job of dismantling bombs in the Navy. Hall earned three medals as a specialist in defusing and exploding bombs underwater, a Pentagon spokeswoman told the Twin Falls Times-News on Monday. He was the youngest of five children from a family in Burley, a small agricultural town in southeast Idaho. After hearing the news, neighbors of Hall's parents and the Boy Scouts lined their cul-de-sac with 67 American flags. Hall enjoyed shooting guns, riding his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, driving Jeeps and running around his new snowmobile, Thibeault said. Chukk Fogel, 24, of San Diego became friends with Hall in Florida, where the two were training to be explosive ordnance disposal technicians. They became fast friends and spent many nights hanging out together, Fogel said. "He loved the outdoors," he said of Hall. "He loved to go up in the mountains and go four-bying with his Jeep. He had a huge Jeep with huge tires." Initially, neither of them completed their training in Florida. In 2004, they were transferred to San Diego, where they worked together to train sea lions to fetch bombs and mines from the ocean. Later, Hall went back to Florida to finish his ordnance disposal training. He also had a more artistic side, learning to play guitar, piano and trombone, Thibeault said. He also was family-oriented, always taking time to visit his siblings. He called his mother, Pam, who is an elementary school teacher, on her birthday Thursday, the day before he was killed. It was his second tour of duty in Iraq. During his first tour, Hall, a certified diver, trained dolphins to locate and clear mines. Between tours, Hall visited his family for Christmas, and bought the snowmobile he kept in his parents' garage. Thibeault said her family is still numb and in shock, trying to cope with the loss of the young man who always seemed so full of joy. She said her family has turned for comfort to leaders at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church they attend. "My parents don't blame anyone, the war, or the Navy," she said. "But in some ways they don't feel it's fair because he was such an amazing person. It's not fair to take somebody like that, but there's a reason for everything, and someday we'll know that reason." One of Hall's older brothers, Michael, died of a mysterious illness in 2003. Shortly before his death, he posted a tribute on the Web to his brothers, who were both in the Navy at the time. "My younger brothers are heroes," he wrote. "Not only to me and my family but to the whole community of Burley, Idaho." -- David Chircop

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