Mideast Battlefield

Iraq blast killed noncom from San Antonio

Web Posted: 01/25/2006 12:00 AM CST

Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer

Brian McElroy stayed under the radar, whether as a Churchill High School senior a decade ago or an Air Force noncommissioned officer known for his quick mind and wit.

But that habitual low profile wasn't enough this week. Insurgents detonated a roadside bomb near Taji, a hotbed of the guerrilla war in Iraq, killing McElroy and Tech. Sgt. Jason L. Norton, 32, of Miami, Okla.

"The mood is hot and cold," said Chief Master Sgt. William Watson, senior enlisted manager of the 3rd Security Forces Squadron at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska, where the men were stationed. He said he goes from "moments of focused lucidity" to emotional turmoil, adding, "When I first I heard, I went to my knees. It hurt. And it's all varying emotions in between."

A staff sergeant, McElroy, 28, of San Antonio and Norton had been in Iraq about three months. Their deaths Sunday made them the 10th and 11th airmen to die in Iraq since the invasion, and among four to perish since the Air Force began providing troops for convoy escort duty 11/2 years ago.

Three have come from the Alaska base. Airman 1st Class Carl L. Anderson Jr., 21, of Georgetown, S.C., was killed Aug. 29, 2004, near Mosul.

McElroy is the 12th San Antonian to be killed in Iraq. At least 193 Texans have died in Iraq since the war began, the Associated Press reported.

Norton and McElroy were in convoy when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle. A third unidentified airman, the gunner in their armored Humvee, was blown clear when the equivalent of a 122-mm artillery shell detonated.

He's expected to recover.

"I don't know if (the convoy) was on the way out or coming back," said Lt. Col. Mike Halbig, an Elmendorf spokesman.

McElroy's parents and wife, Aymber, couldn't be reached for comment. His older brother, Air Force Staff Sgt. James R. McElroy, is stationed at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo but also could not be reached. Goodfellow spokesman Cheri Dedrick said Tuesday he was on emergency leave.

Watson, the 3rd Security Forces Squadron senior enlisted manager, described McElroy as quiet and "very mature, with a wry sense of humor" and devotion to his young daughter.

Described by Watson as smart and driven, McElroy recently had been given the job of acting as the noncommissioned officer in charge of information security for classified systems.

"There's these few individuals that come along where you give them a job, a detail or a duty and they reach around and totally grasp it and take it to levels you never expected them to," he said. "He's that type of guy."

At Churchill, records show McElroy took several computer classes, but there's no mention in the 1996 yearbook of involvement in extracurricular activities, said Lynn Gonzales, assistant director of community relations for the North East Independent School District.

"He was just a quiet student who went to school, graduated and ended up taking on a career in the Air Force," she said.

McElroy joined the Air Force in April 1998 and graduated from basic training at Lackland AFB that summer.

A Security Forces veteran, he returned to Lackland last fall for the Air Force's Basic Combat Convoy Course. BC3, as it's called, is a tutorial on the fundamentals of surviving Iraq's deadly roads.

Convoy training was launched June 3, 2004, at Lackland to help an Army under strain.

McElroy and Norton, a dog handler, were among 700 airmen on convoy escort duty as the week began, and were familiar faces in Elmendorf AFB's tightly knit Security Forces community.

"That's kind of a double hit for that group," Watson said. "When he was here he would help out with the children of the others, as well as raising his own kids."

sigc@express-news.net