Soldier from Rochester is killed by grenade in Iraq

03/25/2005

Star Tribune
Staff and News Services
March 25, 2005

A military police officer from Rochester, Minn., was killed in Iraq when he was struck by shrapnel after a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near him as he guarded a police station in Baghdad.

Spec. Travis Bruce, 22, a 2002 graduate of Mayo High School, died Wednesday morning.

He was the 20th Minnesotan to die during the Iraq war.

Bruce marked his 22nd birthday on March 8 by sending e-mails to “almost everybody,” said his father, Kenneth Bruce of Vancouver, Wash.

An American flag flew outside the Rochester apartment of Vickie Bruce, Travis’ mother. Relatives and friends gathered there Thursday to grieve, share their memories and watch videos of a party thrown for him at the Holiday Inn over Christmas.

“It made us laugh and made us cry,” said Sue Ketchum, his aunt, who said he was “very proud to be a soldier.”

Travis Bruce"Before he went in the military he was a young boy. He became a man. He knew himself, knew his capabilities and was really coming to terms with the important role he played,” she told the Rochester Post-Bulletin.

Bruce joined the Army right out of high school three years ago. He was with the 42nd Military Police Brigade, based in Fort Lewis, Wash.

This was Bruce’s second tour of duty in Iraq. He left around Valentine’s Day. He had been in the first wave of coalition forces who entered the region in March 2003 and served a year’s tour, mostly in Kuwait, his family said.

He came from a military family. Kenneth Bruce retired from the Army in September after 25 years of service. His great-uncle and grandfather were MPs.

The elder Bruce said he encouraged his son to continue their family’s military service: “That’s where I’m feeling sad,” Bruce said. “I’m the one who talked him into going into the Army.”

Bruce said his son was “loved and liked by almost everyone. I’d say everyone, really.”

“I talked to his commander in Iraq and also his brigade commander called me and said [Travis] was a very good soldier, very well-liked and it was a great loss to them,” he said.

John Frederikson, principal at Mayo High School, said he knew Travis Bruce as a hard worker.

“He was just an average regular kid that worked in school and did what he needed to do,” Frederikson told KTTC-TV. “He had a large group of friends that liked him a lot and vice versa.”

The principal said the last time he saw Bruce was at the school in 2003.

“When he spoke at our Veterans Day assembly, his connection with the people that were in his unit, his fellow soldiers, that affection and that commitment to them was profoundly common.”

Heather Tarara, who taught Bruce in an English class during his junior year, recalled the Veterans Day event.

“I remember how nervous he was,” she told the Post-Bulletin, “just standing up in front of all of those people. He seemed so vulnerable.” Yet, she added, “He had been through things none of us had ever seen.”

Word of Bruce’s death was relayed to Mayo students over the public-address system a few minutes before school let out Thursday.

The news “just knocked the wind out of me,” said Steve Mohlke, a teacher who knew him.

Bruce had hoped to return to the United States next month to begin K-9 training in Texas. He wanted to be a police officer or military recruiter after he had finished active duty, Ketchum said.

Funeral arrangements were pending. A memorial service was scheduled for Saturday in Iraq and also at Fort Lewis.