The Death of a warrior
Sgt. 1st Class Pedro Munoz was everything a Special Forces soldier is supposed to be. At 47, he could outrun men half his age. He was an accomplished combat sky diver with 4,000 high-altitude parachute jumps under his belt. Last week Munoz was mortally wounded in Afghanistan, becoming one of the first American military casualties of the new year. He was hit during a firefight as troops closed in on Mullah Dost, who an Army spokesman said had "strong ties" to Taliban leaders and led attacks on U.S. forces. Dost was killed. Munoz died in a medevac chopper.
I first met Sergeant Munoz in December 2002 in a swampy corner of Colombia, where he and his fellow Special Forces soldiers were sent to help wrest the country from decades of guerrilla bombings and extortion. One of his proudest moments, Munoz told me, was jumping into New York's Yankee Stadium on Army Day as a member of the Golden Knights parachute team. After the 9/11 attacks, Munoz left the jump team. Master Sgt. Johnny Mulford recalls hiking with Munoz on the Appalachian Trail when the twin towers were hit. That night in the forest, the unabashedly patriotic Munoz sang the national anthem and told Mulford he was going back into combat. "They are going to need me," he said. His Special Forces brethren weren't surprised. "He was the front man in the stack," says Sgt. 1st Class Chad Campbell, "the first to volunteer for anything." A native of Puerto Rico, Munoz was known for his big heart. "We called him Papi," says Campbell. "Not just because he was older but because he was a mentor, our coach on life." On Christmas Day 2002, Munoz, a devout Roman Catholic, missed his wife, Gisela, and daughter, Dalia, 16. But he kept his mind on the job at hand. "He put his team and his buddies before himself," says teammate Kenny Wright, "every day, in every task." That's exactly what he was doing, his comrades say, when he was killed. -Linda Robinson
This story appears in the January 17, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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