A soldier from Clark is killed near Ramadi
20-year-old adds to brutal Nov. toll in Iraq
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
BY RUDY LARINI
Star-Ledger Staff
Just before leaving for Iraq last summer, Army Pfc. Stephen C. Benish of Linden visited his senior- class English teacher at Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark.
"I told him he looked like a lean, mean fighting machine," Kurt Epps said of the tall, lanky Benish. "I asked him where he was going and he said he was going to the Mideast. I told him that when he got back, he had to tell me all about it.
"He said, 'Mr. Epps, I'll be back.'"
Benish, 20, was killed Sunday morning when he was struck by enemy fire while on a foot patrol near Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad.
He becomes the 37th serviceman with ties to New Jersey to be killed since the fighting in Iraq broke out in March 2003. He also is one of at least 135 U.S. troops killed in November, matching April of this year as the deadliest month since the United States invaded Iraq.
Many died in the street-to- street fight to retake Fallujah or during gunbattles in cities such as Baghdad and Mosul. Others were killed by snipers, in accidents, or by shrapnel sprayed from roadside bombs.
Benish had joined the Army shortly after graduation from Johnson High and the Union County Vocational-Technical High School in 2002 and was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, stationed at Camp Casey in South Korea. He deployed to Iraq in August.
"He died for his country. That's all I can tell you," said his father, Stephen J. Benish of Linden.
Benish's mother, Candy, who lives in North Carolina with his sister, Kelly, a student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said Army officials told her yesterday that he was killed by a single gunshot to the neck just above his protective body armor.
Candy Benish said her son had requested the assignment to South Korea because he knew that training with that unit would lead to a mission in Iraq.
"That was my son's goal -- to go to Iraq," she said. "He wanted to make a difference in this world. They trained him as a gunner and he mastered every gun they put in front of him.
"He was deeply affected by 9/ 11," she added. "He called them brothers who perished in the Twin Towers."
In one of his last letters home, she said, her son spoke warmly of his battalion's chaplain, an Army captain.
"He is always in a good mood," Benish had written. "We could roll in after a terrible mission and there he is waiting for us with a smile on his face. I really like him. He's working on getting us some showers because he knows that will make us a lot happier."
But Benish well understood the dangers he faced.
"Thank you for praying for me," he wrote in one of those last letters. "God knows I will need it."
William Grimes of Garwood, a high school friend, said he learned of Benish's death Sunday night, hours after it happened.
But on Monday, he received a letter from his friend dated Nov. 18, just weeks earlier.
"I miss you, man," Benish wrote on the back of the two-sided letter. "I will be home for a month in a month or two. I can't wait, man. We will go nuts, I mean, seriously nuts. I love you, bud." Then he signed his name.
"P.S.," the letter closed, "I can't wait to hear from you."
Grimes got the letter shortly after getting a day-after confirmation of his friend's death. "The letter hit me the hardest at the end," Grimes said. "I just came home, and saw the letter. I was just so upset."
In an earlier letter, accompanied by an eight-page journal, Benish wrote to Grimes of his fears -- which were heightened when Benish attended a memorial service for a fellow soldier.
"The chaplain began to play 'Amazing Grace' on the bagpipes," Benish wrote in a Sept. 12 journal entry.
"It just hit me like a ton of bricks," Benish wrote. "I might die here. That would really (be awful). I do not want to die in this hellhole."
Benish was an electrician's helper before enlisting in the Army in December 2002, but his mother said his lifelong ambition was to someday become a fireman. She said he was a member of the Explorer post with the Cranford Fire Department since he was 12 years old and became a callman, or volunteer, in the paid department when he turned 18.
"From the time he was 4 years old and heard his first siren, he wanted to be a firefighter," his mother said.
Cranford Fire Chief Leonard Dolan said Benish's letter of resignation as a callman described his calling to the military as a "must."
"I have a strong desire to serve my country in these troubled times and I have enlisted in the U.S. Army," Dolan said Benish wrote.
"He was proud to serve his country and he was happy he was going to Iraq," the chief said. "He was a real happy-go-lucky kid, a lot of energy, always smiling and joking around."
A friend of Benish's in the Explorer post, John Dillon, 21, of Cranford, said Benish hoped to resume his firefighting work after finishing his military service.
"He was definitely looking forward to coming back to this department," Dillon said, adding that he and Benish started in the Explorers together. "But right now he was interested in being a kid, hanging out and having fun."
Benish's high school principal, Robert Taylor, said Benish wrestled at Johnson, but found it hard to devote time to athletics because he spent part of his school day at the county vo-tech program, where he studied electrical technology.
"He was just a great kid," Taylor said.
The Benishes issued a statement yesterday saying, "Our family is deeply saddened and sorrowful. Stephen was a great son and a great soldier who died fighting for what he believed in. Stephen served his country as a soldier to make a difference in the world. He will be forever missed by his family and his many friends."
In addition to his parents and sister, he is survived by his grandmothers, Helen Benish of Linden and Gwen Nellis of Clark.
Benish was born in Rahway and raised in Linden and Clark. After enlisting in December 2002, he completed basic and advanced individual training as an infantryman at Fort Benning, Ga., in June 2003 before being assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division.
Benish's mother said funeral arrangements were incomplete yesterday and she did not know when the body would be returned to the United States. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking that donations be made to the Explorer post at the Cranford Fire Department, 7 Springfield Ave., Cranford, N.J. 07016.
Yesterday, Epps was still struggling to come to grips with the loss of the young man he had seen just months ago.
"It just seems like yesterday that he was here when he walked into my classroom," the English teacher said. "Somehow I could swear it was just yesterday."
