U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Insular AffairsYAP LOSES SOLDIER TO IRAQ WARHAGATNA, Guam (Pacific Daily News, Feb. 10, 1005) – Staff Sgt. Steven Bayow, a 42-year-old soldier from Yap, was one of two soldiers killed Friday in Bayji, Iraq, when a bomb hit their vehicle. He was the second man from the Federated States of Micronesia and at least the eighth man from the region to be killed in Iraq over the last 14 months. Another soldier from the FSM, Kosraean corpsman Bailey Elley, also sustained injuries in Iraq last week while he was tending to an injured soldier, said Samson Pretrick, FSM consul general on Guam. Pretrick said Elley was helping the injured soldier when another bomb went off near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and burned his face and lungs. Bayow's older brother Mark Mathow, who lives in Colonia, Yap, said the family has been slammed hard with the news of their brother's death. "It was a very unexpected call," Mathow said last night. Though Bayow was stationed in Fort Stewart, Ga., with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, his older brother Mark Mathow said his heart never left Yap. Originally published February 10, 2005 |