Five soldiers remembered at Carson memorial service

Three soldiers who were killed in February when an explosives-laden motorcyclist attacked a security checkpoint in Afghanistan were among those honored Thursday at a memorial for fallen soldiers.

The service at Fort Carson’s Soldiers’ Memorial Chapel also honored two other soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team who were killed in unrelated attacks in Afghanistan.

“They knew they were joining the Army in a country at war, and they wanted to serve,” said Lt. Col. Dan Chandler, the brigade’s rear detachment commander.

Staff Sgt. John A. Reiners, 24, Sgt. Jeremiah J. Wittman, 26, and Spc. Bobby J. Pagan, 23, died Feb. 13 in the suicide attack on a security checkpoint in southern Afghanistan’s Zhari district, in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar province, the Army said. All three were assigned to the brigade’s 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.

Several of their comrades were reportedly injured in the blast.

Also remembered on Thursday were Pfc. JR Salvacion, 27, and Staff Sgt. Michael P. Cardenaz, 29.

As hundreds of mourners looked on Thursday afternoon, Wittman was celebrated as an amiable young leader who managed to maintain good humor long after comrades had turned sour.

A forward observer, Wittman injected his personality as he instructed soldiers in the finer points of calling in supporting fire, a friend recalled.

“He’d say, ‘Cheer up. We have the best job in the world: We get to blow stuff up. If that doesn’t make you smile, I’ll always be here to make fun of you,’” said Spc. Thomas Noble.

The Billings, Mont., native completed a previous tour in Iraq. He is survived by his wife, Karyn, and their daughter Miah, of Chesnee, S.C., and a second daughter, Ariauna Andrews of Cody, Wyo.

Reiners, of Lake Hamilton, Fla., was described as a loving husband to his wife Casey of Colorado Springs and a doting father to their son, Lex.

He liked the simple things in life, friends said: camping and tearing through mud in a souped-up Chevrolet Suburban.

In his downtime, Reiners jotted down things to do and see in a book he kept to record plans for his return home.

Spc. Keith Hughes said in a letter read at the ceremony the two talked about taking a mudding trip in the Florida wild with Reiners’ father and brother.

“I’ll see you at the big mud hole in the sky,” Hughs said.

Reiners did two previous tours in Iraq before deploying to Afghanistan. Lexi Reiners told The Gazette last month her husband took pride in the Ranger tab he earned from the Army’s elite Ranger School and looked forward to a career in the Army.

Pagan, of Austin, Tex., was the least experienced of the three, a newcomer to combat who joined the Army in 2008. Despite that, he was famous for his brash, outspoken personality.

When not proclaiming himself “the greatest,” he served as an example to other junior infantryman in his drive to succeed, friends said.

“You let all the other privates know you were their biggest competition,” said Cpl. Joshua Candelaria in a letter from Afghanistan.

Pagan had a knack for arguments, Candelaria said. By hammering home his points long after comrades had tired of the fight, he won by attrition. Behind all the talk, though, was a soldier who was “brave, optimistic, loyal and funny.”

Salvacion, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, was killed Feb. 21 by an improvised bomb in Senjaray, a town of 12,000 near Kandahar. He also served with the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry.

He was the type of soldier who let his actions do the talking, friends said.

According to a letter from Salvacion’s company commander, the Hawaii native of Filipino descent had an accent so strong that some soldiers could initially pick out only two phrases in his speech: “Bruddah,” a term of endearment he bestowed on most everyone around him, and “Oh yeah!” — Salvacion’s substitute for “Roger.”

He had a laid-back personality and lack of pretense that won his comrades over — so much so, they overlooked the fish smell that stuck around his platoon area for a week after he received squid jerky in a care package from home.

He is survived by his wife Joy and son Zildjian, of Aiea, Hawaii.

Cardenaz, of Corona, Calif., was a veteran of two tours in Kosovo and two tours in Iraq. He was killed Feb. 20 in a rocket-propelled grenade strike Kunar province, in eastern Afghanistan.

He was a tough and demanding leader, whose demands showed that he cared deeply for his fellow soldiers even when his overall manner verged on the abrasive, friends said.

“He was Army through and through, and he wanted everybody else to be the same way,” said Capt. Kevin Hutcheson, his company commander in the 2nd Batallion, 12th Infantry Regiment. “He’d say, ‘Sir, you go do your officer thing.  I’ll do my NCO thing. I got it covered.' And he did.”

Before deploying, Cardenaz gave his commanding officer’s wife a pep talk.

“He said, ‘Don’t worry, Mrs. Hutcheson, I won’t let him do anything stupid. I’ll make sure he comes home to you.”
Cardenaz is survived by his wife, Macarena, four daughters and a son.

 
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