On Iraq War Anniversary, Remembering Glendora’s Fallen Soldiers

On this tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, the nation remembers the lives lost since American troops invaded Iraq to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power. The U.S. began bombing in the outskirts of Baghdad on March 19, 2003. Although Baghadad had fallen on May 1 of that year, combat operations didn’t formally end until 2010.

According to Brown University’s Watson Institute, 150,000 American troops, Iraqi civilians and contractors have been killed since March 19, 2003. The institute also estimates that the U.S. spent an estimated  $1.7 trillion on the war.

As the thousands of casualties are remembered, four Glendora soldiers were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003.

Army Spc. Elias Elias, 27 was killed by a explosion in Baghdad, Iraq in 2006. He was the first soldier from Glendora to be killed in the Iraq War.

Staff Sgt Thomas M. McFall, 36, of Glendora, was killed May 28, 2007 in Baghdad when an improvised explosive device detonated during a patrol.

was killed when his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2007. He is the youngest soldier from Glendora to be killed in Iraq.

, was killed in 2012 in Sperwan Gar, Afghanistan from injuries sustained from an explosion of a buried enemy bomb. The Glendora native left behind a wife and two children.