NAME: Russell Andrew Kurtz
PLACE OF BIRTH: Pittsburg, Allegheny County, PA
DATE OF BIRTH: 31 Jan 1985
DATES OF SERVICE: ?? ??? ???? - 11 Feb 2007
UNIT ASSIGNED: 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division
CAMPAIGNS: Operation Iraqi Freedom
AWARDS: Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Global War or Terrorism Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Combat Infantryman Badge, Parachutist Badge
SUMMARY OF SERVICE:
00 May 2003 - Graduated from Bethel Park High School
Attended Church at Ruthfred Evangelical Lutheran Church
Worked at family grocery store
11 Feb 2009 - Sgt. Russell Kurtz with 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, of Bethel Park, Pa was killed in an explosion in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was a passenger in a HUMVEE that hit an IED
Kurtz was interested in military history from an early age and enlisted as a senior in high school; although, he had been accepted to colleges. Jill Kurtz said her son “decided that he had to do something; he didn’t want others over there fighting and dying without him being willing to do the same, and we supported him.”
Kurtz played football and baseball in school and loved the outdoors, his mother said. “He was stationed up in Alaska, and loved it up there — the skiing and the hunting and the fishing and he only had one complaint about the military: the food. After military service, he wanted to come back home, go to college and someday work for the Drug Enforcement Administration. “He loved his friends and he loved the Lord,” she said of her son, a Lutheran. “He’s home with the Lord now, so he’s doing better than we are.”Kurtz also is survived by his father, Roger, and by his sister, Stephanie, a sophomore at the University of Delaware.
Laid to rest at Bethel Cemetery, Bethel Park, Allegheny County, PA
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