Fallen Soldier: James Adamouski

Army Capt. James Adamouski, 29, of Springfield, Va., was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, Hunter Army Airfield, Ga. On April 2, 2003, he was killed along with five other soldiers when the Black Hawk helicopter he was in crashed in central Iraq.

Capt. Adamouski attended Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, Virginia and was a star on the soccer team. He also played football and ran cross country and indoor track. At West Point, Capt. Adamouski continued to play soccer, making the All-Patriot League, and went semi-professional in Germany for a brief stint. The first West Point graduate to die in Iraq, he had just been accepted to enter Harvard Business School and hoped to teach economics at West Point.

In his last message home to his wife, Capt. Adamouski wrote about how he was eager to be home and his fears about war. “The conventional Iraqi Army forces are no match,” he wrote. “However, the crazy Iraqi with a bomb strapped to his chest or a shoulder-fired missile is what scares me the most.”

Capt. Adamouski is survived by his wife, Meighen. They had only been married seven months when he died.