thedrifter
04-17-08, 08:12 AM
ROGERS : Marine in convoy killed near Kandahar
BY MICHELLE BRADFORD
Posted on Thursday, April 17, 2008
Kyle Wilks had to stay behind when the rest of his Marine Corps unit was shipped out to Iraq in 2005. He learned later that the soldier who took his place was killed by a roadside bomb. On Tuesday, Wilks of Rogers was killed in Afghanistan when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, his uncle Steve Wilks said Wednesday. He was 24.
“Kyle had to have a cyst removed from the side of his head and couldn’t go when his original unit went to Iraq,” Wilks said. “Then, the guy who was in the same vehicle in the exact position Kyle was supposed to have been in ended up getting killed.
“ Now, he winds up getting killed in a similar situation — it’s just a lot to grasp.”
Kyle Wilks wanted to be a police officer and that’s part of the reason he joined the Marines, said Rogers police Sgt. Kelley Cradduck, who knew Kyle Wilks from New Hope Fellowship Church in Springdale.
“We talked a lot about how military experience would help him get a law enforcement job,” Cradduck said. “He was really looking forward to that opportunity.”
Wilks, who graduated in 2002 from Rogers High School, also wanted to help people and serve his country, his uncle said.
“He was a good guy who could talk to anybody about anything,” Steve Wilks said.
Wilks said his nephew was close to his parents, Randall J. Wilks and Kathy A. Wilks of Rogers, and his 19-year-old sister, MaKayla, also a Rogers High graduate.
MaKayla Wilks wrote on her Facebook page Wednesday she was lost without her “bubby.”
“i miss him soo much and love him !! i dont understand but i know God has a reason. to all military and families, share with each other your love and never take it for granted,” she wrote.
Wilks joined the Marines in 2004 and completed basic training in San Diego. He was attached to a unit stationed at Camp Lejeune, N. C.
The Marine Corps didn’t release information about Wilks ’ death Wednesday, but his uncle said the family believes he was riding in the fourth vehicle in a convoy of about 34 vehicles that was struck by an improvised explosive device near Kandahar, where nearly 2, 300 U. S. Marines have arrived over the past two months. “We think he was killed instantly,” Steve Wilks said. Randall Wilks heard a car door outside his home around midnight, looked out and saw it was a Marine, his brother said. He knew what the news would be, Steve Wilks said.
Ellie
BY MICHELLE BRADFORD
Posted on Thursday, April 17, 2008
Kyle Wilks had to stay behind when the rest of his Marine Corps unit was shipped out to Iraq in 2005. He learned later that the soldier who took his place was killed by a roadside bomb. On Tuesday, Wilks of Rogers was killed in Afghanistan when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, his uncle Steve Wilks said Wednesday. He was 24.
“Kyle had to have a cyst removed from the side of his head and couldn’t go when his original unit went to Iraq,” Wilks said. “Then, the guy who was in the same vehicle in the exact position Kyle was supposed to have been in ended up getting killed.
“ Now, he winds up getting killed in a similar situation — it’s just a lot to grasp.”
Kyle Wilks wanted to be a police officer and that’s part of the reason he joined the Marines, said Rogers police Sgt. Kelley Cradduck, who knew Kyle Wilks from New Hope Fellowship Church in Springdale.
“We talked a lot about how military experience would help him get a law enforcement job,” Cradduck said. “He was really looking forward to that opportunity.”
Wilks, who graduated in 2002 from Rogers High School, also wanted to help people and serve his country, his uncle said.
“He was a good guy who could talk to anybody about anything,” Steve Wilks said.
Wilks said his nephew was close to his parents, Randall J. Wilks and Kathy A. Wilks of Rogers, and his 19-year-old sister, MaKayla, also a Rogers High graduate.
MaKayla Wilks wrote on her Facebook page Wednesday she was lost without her “bubby.”
“i miss him soo much and love him !! i dont understand but i know God has a reason. to all military and families, share with each other your love and never take it for granted,” she wrote.
Wilks joined the Marines in 2004 and completed basic training in San Diego. He was attached to a unit stationed at Camp Lejeune, N. C.
The Marine Corps didn’t release information about Wilks ’ death Wednesday, but his uncle said the family believes he was riding in the fourth vehicle in a convoy of about 34 vehicles that was struck by an improvised explosive device near Kandahar, where nearly 2, 300 U. S. Marines have arrived over the past two months. “We think he was killed instantly,” Steve Wilks said. Randall Wilks heard a car door outside his home around midnight, looked out and saw it was a Marine, his brother said. He knew what the news would be, Steve Wilks said.
Ellie