 Arizona Republic -- An explosion in Baghdad killed a 34-year-old soldier and former Valley resident this week as he responded to a call to dismantle a bomb.
 Staff Sgt. Russell J. Verdugo died Monday, becoming the 51st service member with Arizona ties to be killed in Iraq. Three have died in Afghanistan.
Verdugo lived in Phoenix until junior high school, and then moved to Hawaii with his mother, Susan Stanley. In a telephone interview from her Iowa home, Stanley said her son returned to the Valley in high school and lived with his father. He attended a few classes at Mesa Community College and enlisted in the Army in June 1993 to get an edge in college.
His father died last year.
Stanley said Verdugo worked his way up the ranks of the explosive ordnance division and loved his work. He was assigned to the 767th Ordnance Company based at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.
He often worked on advance bomb detection teams for presidential trips or visits to sites such as the Capitol, Stanley said.
His mother remembers how excited he would get with the importance of his role and the minutiae of his job, like being the first person to open a vault that had been closed 50 years and making sure no bombs were inside.
Verdugo was a detail-oriented soldier who immersed himself in his hobbies, mostly photography and paintball, Stanley said.
In November 2002, he met Kari Youngberg, the woman he would marry. She was visiting a friend in D.C. and lived in Chicago at the time. Their courtship was long-distance. She stayed in Chicago and when he wasn't in D.C., he was serving in Afghanistan.
He proposed to her in July and she found a job in Virginia teaching third grade.
A week later, they learned Verdugo would be deployed to Iraq. They moved their wedding, which would have been this summer, to Thanksgiving weekend.
"I am so thankful for that now," Kari Verdugo said.
While he was in Iraq, the couple talked a few times a week.
They last spoke on Saturday when they planned a trip to Scotland. Verdugo and his photography friend wanted to see who could take better pictures of the island's castles.
"They were nice enough they were going to include their wives," Kari joked.
Verdugo was scheduled to return to the United States at the end of June.
For now, Kari plans to continue living in Virginia.
"I'll miss his smile, I'll miss how he made me feel, like I was so special," Verdugo said. "I'll miss the love he gave me." |
tania