 Ernest Bucklew is shown with his wife, Barbara, and sons Justin and Joshua in this 2001 family photo. Bucklew was killed Sunday in a missile attack in Iraq
Last week a West Virginian lost his legs in Iraq. This week another lost his life.
The new mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware will receive the remains of
the 16 US soldiers killed in a missile attack in Iraq this past weekend. The soldiers
were killed when a Chinook helicopter was shot down.
Thirty-three-year-old Ernest Bucklew, was heading home for his mother's funeral in
Pennsylvania, when he died in the crash.
Bucklew is the son of a West Virginia coal miner, originally from Reedsville in
Preston County. He joined the Army in 1999.
He graduated West Preston County High School in 1988 and joined the Army
Reserves and served as a cook with the 354th Ordnance unit out of Morgantown
for several years.
Dover, Delaware was the site where thousands of flag draped caskets arrived
during the Vietnam War, but so far the Bush administration has been reluctant about the
photographing of the caskets, nor have they disclosed causalities on the other
side or the numbers of American soldiers who are being injured in the war in
Iraqi.
"They say there's a reason for everything, but I just can't find a reason for this,"
said Bucklew's uncle, Jack Smith of Point Marion, just across the state line in
Pennsylvania.
Bucklew's wife, Barbara, wept as she spoke Monday of breaking the news to the
couple's two children, Joshua, 8, and Justin, 4.
"My oldest one is just a little numb. He understands his nana and father passed
away, but he hasn't talked about it. The youngest one just doesn't understand. He
doesn't understand the concept of death right now," she said.
Bucklew had sent an e-mail to his family saying "this is a letter from hell."
"Personally, I see no use for the war," Smith said. "This country shouldn't be
starting wars; we should be defending ourselves and others. I think all these boys
should be sent home."
In one of the last e-mails Bucklew sent to his wife, he reminisced about times with
his mother when he was a child. Mary Ellen Bucklew, 57, died Friday of an
aneurysm while driving home from work.
"He said he couldn't sleep. He was thinking about her," Barbara Bucklew said.
Bucklew is also survived by his father, Donald, a Vietnam veteran.
"It brings it all home," said a family member. "Before, it seemed so abstract.
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