Fort Bragg soldiers died at vanguard

Parents struggling with their losses

The three Fort Bragg soldiers killed this week in fiercely contested western Iraq were in the vanguard of a major U.S.-led offensive, their families said Thursday.

Sgt. Bryan W. Large, 31, Spc. Jacob T. Vanderbosch, 21 and Pfc. Roberto C. Baez, 19, died Monday in Haqlaniyah after a roadside bomb detonated near their armored Humvee.

They were to be part of a U.S.-led assault that began the next day in three Euphrates river towns about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Operation River Gate was aimed at insurgent groups based in the area -- reportedly including al-Qaeda in Iraq -- and at cutting the flow of arms and militants from nearby Syria. About 2,500 U.S. troops were involved.

"We were told that they were among the first [troops] to move in to that area," Vanderbosch's mother, Mary, said Thursday.

"The three paratroopers, tragically killed during combat operations in Iraq, served honorably and faithfully prior to this cowardly act by insurgents," said Col. Bryan Owens, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment commander, in a statement issued by the 82nd Airborne Division. "They were proud of what they were doing and rendered the ultimate sacrifice for our nation."

Vanderbosch of Vadnais Heights, Minn., had loved to hunt deer with relatives on woodlands they own in northern Minnesota, his mother said. He also was an aggressive forward on his high school soccer team and an endlessly optimistic risk-taker off the field, too.

Once, when he was 18 or 19, his father asked what things frightened him.

Nothing, he replied.

"But of course that's what we need over there," said Mary Vanderbosch. "You always would know that if Jake was with you that he would make the right decisions."

Just before his unit flew out of Pope Air Force Base about a month ago, his parents drove down to say goodbye. After he repeated one of his favorite phrases, the one he had always used when he got into teenage trouble, she threatened to have it engraved on a plaque for him: "Mom, I'm going to be OK."

Her son had called about 10 hours before he was killed.

"It was 4 a.m. here," she said. "I'm so glad I answered."

The young soldier said he was going on a mission that might last a while, but he couldn't say where he was going. He said he loved her, and talked about a truck he planned to buy with his combat pay.

"We're proud of him, and he was brave," she said.

Vanderbosch is survived by his mother; his father, Scott; brothers Joe, 24, and Ryan, 19; and sister Jennie, 14.

Large, who was from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, is survived by his daughter Kylie, 10; his father, Larry; and mother, Linda.

Larry Large said the loss of his son had been traumatic for the family and they could not yet speak about it publicly.

Baez's survivors include his mother, Jeannette; father, Carlos; and brother Juan, 28.

Jeannette Baez, in a telephone interview from the family home in Tampa, Fla., called Roberto "a homeboy."

"Not a mama's boy, but he liked to be at home, and he was really caring, always looking out for us," she said.

Roberto Baez had loved playing Little League baseball, then got into skateboarding. In recent years, he had turned very athletic, jogging and working out daily.

His older brother had struggled with depression after leaving the Navy, and she and his father had tried to talk Roberto out of joining the Army, she said. They grudgingly relented, though, in part because he had respectfully decided not to do it without their blessing.

"He was such a fine young man and never gave us problems," she said.

He hoped to have a career in the military, she said, and was highly patriotic.

He called Sept. 23 from Iraq, and that was the last time they spoke.

"I told him, 'I won't have no Christmas, no New Year's, no Thanksgiving without you,' " she said. "He laughed and said OK."

Roberto joined the Army last year, and his mother said that it was too soon for the Army to have sent him into such a dangerous situation and that the war was senseless.

"There are a lot of things they need to be doing here before deploying these young innocent boys there," she said.

"I just wish I could go back in time and get someone to help me keep him from joining," Baez said. "I'd like to have my son here. Sometimes I'm still thinking maybe there was a mistake, maybe they will call and tell me my son is alive."

(News researcher Becky Ogburn contributed to this report.)