News Article
By: BILL JONES/Staff Writer
Source: The Greeneville Sun
03-22-2005
A Tennessee Army National Guardsman who was assigned to Greeneville-based Troop G was killed and four other area soldiers were wounded in Iraq on Sunday.
The U.S. Department of Defense announced late Monday that Sgt. Paul W. Thomason, III, 37, of Jefferson City, had died Sunday, March 20, in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device (roadside bomb) detonated near his vehicle.
The Tennessee Army National Guard, in a separate news release, confirmed Thomason’s death, but indicated that his rank was Specialist (Spc.).
Troop G family members, meanwhile, said that although the news releases listed Thomason’s residence as being in Talbott, the family had moved, last June, to Jefferson City.
First 278th Soldier Killed
Thomason was the first member of the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team to be killed in Iraq.
During a brief Monday night telephone interview with The Greeneville Sun from the Thomason family home in Jefferson City, Thomason’s wife, Amanda Thomason, said she had learned late Sunday afternoon of his death from military officers who arrived at her home.
"He was a hero," she said of her husband. "He was my best friend, and the best father a child could ever have."
She noted that Paul Thomason was the father of four children: Cora, 2; Asher, 4; Piper, 7; and Megan, 10.
The Associated Press quoted Amanda Thomason as saying that she and the children had spoken to Paul Thomason by telephone on Saturday, the day before he died.
"He got to talk to the kids and tell the kids how much he loved them and how much he missed them and that he would see them in seven months," an Associated Press article quoted her as saying.
In the telephone interview with the Greeneville Sun reporter, she noted that Paul Thomason had been a veteran of prior service in the U.S. Air Force and had only joined the Tennessee Army National Guard in September 2003.
In a separate interview, she told the Associated Press that her husband “was in personnel” with the 278th’s Second Squadron unit and was recently relocated to do a twice-weekly convoy.
On Monday night, Amanda Thomason said her husband had told her that he recently had begun driving a large military truck and was taking part in convoys between Forward Operating Base Bernstein and another base to which he recently had been transferred.
Attack Described
Mrs. Thomason also said she had received conflicting accounts as to whether her husband was driving a large military truck called a HEMTT (heavy expanded mobility tactical truck) or was a passenger in the truck when a roadside bomb of the type the military calls an improvised explosive device detonated either beneath or beside the truck as it moved along an Iraqi roadway.
She said she was told that the explosion threw Thomason from the truck and that he "died on impact."
Another soldier, she said, also was thrown from the truck and was wounded, but survived.
Mrs. Thomason said she understood that the truck her husband was in at the time of the attack had been taking part in a convoy that was traveling to Forward Operating Base Bernstein in northeastern Iraq, where many other local 278th RCT soldiers are based.
Neither the Department of Defense nor the National Guard has announced the names of other 278th soldiers who were wounded in the Sunday morning attack that killed Thomason.
But family members of other Troop G National Guardsmen said the wounded soldiers included two members of the 278th RCT’s Morristown-based 190th Engineer Company and two members of its Newport-based Troop E.
“The wounded were evacuated to a coalition forces medical facility for treatment,” an Armed Forces Information Service article posted on the U.S. Department of Defense Web site stated.
Interviewed Last May
Thomason had been interviewed by a Greeneville Sun reporter last May 1 during an event for the families of Troop G soldiers about a month before they left for active duty on Father’s Day 2004.
During that interview, Thomason said he was a U.S. Air Force veteran and was employed at the American Pad & Paper Co. plant in Morristown.
He noted that he had joined the Tennessee Army National Guard out of concern about the war on terrorism.
Amanda Thomason had said during the same interview that her husband had joined just short of his 36th birthday. Had his birthday passed, she said, he would have been beyond the age limit for enlisting in the National Guard.
Sun File Photo by Phil Gentry -
Spc. Paul Thomason, 37, a 278th Regimental Combat Team soldier who was killed in Iraq on Sunday, is shown in a May 1, 2004, photo surrounded by his family. The photo was taken during a dinner at the Greeneville National Guard Armory for families of Troop G soldiers. Pictured with Thomason are (clockwise, from lower left) daughter, Cora; daughter, Piper; wife, Amanda; daughter, Megan; and son, Asher.
Another story from the Greeneville Sun.
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