My Hero. My Friend. CPT David M. Fraser.

CPT David M. Fraser and I met our Plebe year at West Point on the cross-country team. Dave was the most laid back guy I'd ever met. Not even the rigors of being an NCAA Div I athlete and a civil engineering major phased him. We went on all kinds of adventures together, from our first free weekend away from West Point where we stayed in a $50 a night crack house of a motel in Manhattan to running with the bulls in Spain after graduation. Dave taught Sunday School for all four years at school, even heading up the entire program his senior year. I didn't even find out until well after we graduated and were living together in Texas, that he had been the top engineering student at West Point and offered a teaching position while still a cadet. Dave was that humble. He was a combat engineer platoon leader in 3-67 AR during Operation Iraqi Freedom 05-07 . On Dave's last day of patroling in Baghdad on 26 Novembe 2006, he volunteered to go out on one last mission with the unit that was replacing him in order to make sure they were confident in all they were doing. He was killed in action. Dave was the epitome of a good man; one of the finest I have ever known, and serves as an inspiration of a life well lived to all those he ever met. You are missed brother. You will never be forgotten.

Note:

The pic was taken in the bull ring in Pamplona, Spain after the running of the bulls. I'm standing in the middle (with sunglasses) Dave is to the right (with red bandanna, gotee, and hook 'em horns). The dude to my left is CPT Seth Chappell, currently in Iraq, and the guy kneeling is a random dude from Canada.

Garr