Seattle Post Intelligencer -- FORT LEWIS, Wash. -- A roadside bombing last month in Mosul has resulted in the death of a fourth Army soldier, family friends in Louisiana and fellow soldiers said.
First Sgt. Michael Bordelon, a father of three from St. Mary's Parish, La., and member of the Stryker Brigade based at this post south of Tacoma, died Tuesday at Brook Medical Center in San Antonio, where he was being treated for burns and other injuries, those close to the family said.
As of early Thursday the death of Bordelon had not been officially announced by the Department of Defense, although others in his unit mourned his passing on the Stryker Brigade News Web site Wednesday. Officials at Fort Lewis said they could not comment.
Those who died earlier following from the bombing of an Army convoy April 23 in Mosul were Sgt. Anthony J. Davis Jr., 22, of Long Beach, Calif., also a Stryker Brigade member, and two soldiers from Fort Carson, Colo.
Bordelon, a member of the First Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment, Bravo Company, was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. One of his duties was to write the relatives of other Stryker soldiers who died in action. The regiment has lost nine soldiers in nearly eight months in Iraq.
Dan Martin, whose mother-in-law lives across the street from the Bordelons in Louisiana, said the soldier was always ready to help, whether it was fixing a car or assembling new lawn furniture.
"He was the kind of guy that anybody would want as a neighbor," Martin said. "He was just a really good guy."
Memorial ceremonies were pending at Bordelon's unit in Mosul and at Fort Lewis.