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Sam Williams Huff
—October 2006 Shipment Honoree
Memorial for Pfc. Sam Huff: Mourners honor “best female
soldier”
Mountain View grad killed by blast in Iraq
Source: By C.T. Revere, Tucson Citizen (Tuesday, April
26, 2005)
 Sam Huff was
an unlikely soldier in the eyes of those who knew her just
months ago as a classmate and drum major at Mountain View High
School. Even those who paved the way for the Tucson teen to
enter the U.S. Army had a hard time envisioning the petite
brunette with a gleaming smile as a member of their own ranks.
But to the
Army sergeant who cradled the 18-year-old in her dying moments
on a dusty highway outside Baghdad,
Pfc. Sam Williams Huff was the kind of soldier to boast about.
When Private Huff became my husband's soldier, he was so proud
to have her on his team," Californian Erica James said
yesterday at a memorial service where about 850 people
celebrated Huff's short life.
Huff died April 17,
2005 in the arms of Sgt. Sam James, her team leader with the
504th Military Police Battalion, after a roadside bomb ripped
through the armored vehicle she was driving.
Erica James
flew from Los Angeles to share her husband's impressions of Huff as a soldier with
those who knew her only as a friend, classmate, sister or
daughter. "He would always come home from work talking about
how motivated she is and how quickly she learned everything.
He couldn't stop saying, 'Erica, I have the best female
soldier in my company,' " she said, fighting back tears. "My
husband was honored to have Private Huff as his soldier."
For nearly
two hours, Huff was honored during a memorial service at Casas
Adobes Baptist Church in Oro Valley. It painted a portrait of
a girl who loved music, had scores of close friends and was
scarcely removed from student life.
On one side
of the speaker's lectern sat her feathered drum major's
helmet, on the other her canvas-shrouded Army helmet. Her
parents, retired Tucson police Detective Robert Huff and Oro
Valley police employee Margaret Williams, sat in the front row
with other relatives and close friends. Behind them sat scores
of mourners in military and police uniforms.
In front of them on stage was the entire Mountain View
marching band.
A video
tribute to Huff shared photographs from infancy to soldier,
accompanied by Bob Carlisle's song "Butterfly Kisses," a
ballad about a father reminiscing on his daughter's wedding
day.
Sgt. 1st
Class Michael Colon-Mateo recalled the day Huff walked into
the Army's Foothills Recruiting Station in Marana. "When Sam
came into our office, all of 16 and 99 pounds, talking about
'I want to be in the Army,' we looked at each other and went 'Mmm
hmm, yeah,' "he said.
But before
long, Huff showed the recruiters she had what it takes to be a
soldier, Sgt. Roger Jackson said. "She was enthusiastic,
energetic, very motivated," Jackson
said. "Anybody who was around her knew how contagious it was."
Student after student stepped
to microphones to share stories, read poems, shed tears and
say goodbye. One young woman recalled the day she met Huff,
who ushered her to the school nurse's office after a
playground spill. Another remembered
being a frightened freshman who was introduced to Huff's silly
side. "She crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue and did the
Chicken Dance," the teen said. Another female classmate
recalled her as "gorgeous, kick-ass and fun."
Former
teachers noted Huff's blend of maturity and playfulness.
"She's probably one of the top three beautiful people I've
ever known," said Shannon Gibson, Huff's eighth-grade English
teacher. "She was smart and beautiful and funny, and she would
laugh with me when other kids were doing stupid things."
Jeremy Vega, a former bandmate, wondered
how Huff is being received in heaven. "How does God react when
one of his angels comes back to Him so soon?" he said. "I miss
her."
Jennifer
DeMille, a junior at Mountain View,
saw indications of Huff's leadership in her freshman year with
the school's marching band. "We had two lines across the
field. I was in front, and Sam was behind me, and I remember
her saying, 'Boots up! Boots up!' " she said.
Huff's brother,
Sean, said she was "a hero to all of us." "Sam gave her life
for everybody in this room, Arizona and the United States. Sam
gave her life for the freedoms that you and I take for granted
every day," he said.
Huff will be
buried Thursday at Arlington
National Cemetery in Virginia.
Sam Williams Huff
Source:
Arlington National Cemetery Website
1 May 2005:
Facing the
highest ever casualty rate for servicewomen in its history,
America is considering making official what is already a
reality—allowing women to fight on the front line in war.
The ground
war in Iraq
has made the historical tradition of not having women in
combat unworkable. A total of 35 US servicewomen have now died
in Iraq and 271 have been injured. It is a small percentage of
the 1,500 US service personnel fatalities and the 11,600
wounded, but these women are being killed and injured under
enemy fire.
Three days
ago army private Sam Huff was buried with full military honors
at Arlington National Cemetery. She was 18 and died on 18
April 2005 when her convoy was blown up by a roadside bomb.
“Beneath that beautiful young lady was a backbone of steel,”
her sergeant, Sam Jones, wrote in a letter read aloud at her
hometown funeral in Tucson, Arizona.
Huff's
parents reluctantly let her join the army when she was 16 and
she quickly gained a reputation for enthusiasm and grit.
“She's the bravest kid I've ever known,” said her father,
Robert Huff. “She was up and down that damned road between Baghdad and the airport, which is notorious for improvised explosive
devices. But she knew the risks and believed in the mission.”
Photos Courtesy of the Family
Sam Williams
Huff
Source:
Arlington National Cemetery Website
May 4, 2005
Pfc. Dan
Balda
4th Brigade Combat Team PAO
“You know
what Lathers? I could have been the next Gap girl. I had a
modeling contract and everything. But no, look at me I’m in
this awful country, wearing (desert combat uniforms), carrying
around a weapon wherever I go and fighting for my country,”
said Private First Class Ashley Lathers, a military policeman,
170th Military Police Company.
Private First Class Sam Huff in an undated photo
(U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Dan Balda)
“I can’t
count how many times Private Huff said this to me day after
day. Always with a smile and a laugh after she said it.
Followed by, ‘I wouldn’t change where I’m at for anything.’
That’s the kind of person she was. In all honesty she was a
model; a model Soldier.”
Lathers was
talking about her ‘sister,’ Private Sam Huff, at Huff’s
memorial service, April 22. Huff was killed while returning
from the al Dora police station when the vehicle she was
traveling in was struck by an improvised explosive device.
According to
her battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel James Switzer, she
was not a typical Soldier. “Within two weeks of her arriving
in our unit, even I knew who she was,” Switzer said.
“Battalion commanders get to know their Soldiers for two
reasons. They got in trouble or they are very unique
individuals. Private Huff was a unique individual. Her smile
could light up a room. She could lighten the mood of any
hardcore (noncommissioned officer) and even bring a smile to
an old warrior’s face.”
Switzer told his fellow
Soldiers that he had spoken to Huff’s parents. They told him
they knew their daughter might perish in combat, but that Huff
f elt
she was doing what she always wanted to do; serve in the
United States Army. Huff felt she was in the right place,
doing the right thing, with the right people.
Lathers
shared many fond memories of huff with her fellow
Dragonslayers as well as the assembled mourners. “If you knew
Sam at all, you knew her two loves; dancing and her fiancé
Nick,” Lathers said. “That girl would dance any time she got
the chance, I’d catch her dancing in our room, dancing down
the hall. She danced with a confidence and grace most people
lack. 18 is a tender age to leave this world. But know this,
she lived a life that many people only dream about.”
Huff’s team
leader, Sergeant Sam James praised her for her beauty as well
as her brains. “Her thirst for knowledge sometimes overwhelmed
me as a leader, leaving me scrambling to answer question after
question,” James said. “She was also a beautiful young lady,
the kind that would turn heads in the mall.”
James
continued to extol the virtues of his Soldier. “You would be
hard pressed to find a Soldier that could learn and retain
knowledge as fast as she did,” James said. “If I wrote down
every positive quality I’d want in a Soldier, Huff would still
be better. She was the kind of Soldier that made being a
leader in the Army fun.”
Captain
Robert Matthews, Huff’s company commander, described which of
Huff’s many qualities he will miss the most. “She was a quiet
professional who took her job seriously,” Matthews said. “Her
dedication to duty and pursuit of excellence was an example
for us all to emulate. Sam was a brave and honorable woman.
She did her duty without complaint and earned nothing but
respect and admiration from those of us that served with her.
Her death was tragic and has left a void that will never be
filled.”
Switzer
mentioned that Huff will be laid to rest at Arlington National
Cemetery, an appropriate resting place for a young hero. “I
can bet you the sun will be shining that day (the day she will
be laid to rest), and up in heaven a bunch of old warriors
will be smiling.”
Slain Soldier Reached Beyond
Expectations
Source: By
Ian Shapira, Courtesy of the
Washington Post
(Friday, April 29, 2005)
Not many
people, including her parents, considered Sam W. Huff to be
obvious Army material. She was petite—just over 5 feet
tall—didn't play any major sports and was best known at
Tucson's Mountain View High School for her striking beauty and
sharp fashion sense.
But the
marching band drum major was also feisty and persistent, a
conductor with a loud voice and commanding presence. With
relatives who had served in the Air Force, Navy and Marine
Corps, the 18-year-old had precise career goals: a tour of
duty in the military, a college degree in psychology and a job
at the FBI profiling criminals. After graduating from high
school last year, Huff completed the grueling months of basic
training and then, around Christmas, visited her old stomping
grounds before being deployed to Iraq.
"She told me
basic training was really hard, how she was having problems
with her knee and that they tried talking her out of the
Army," said Ellen Kirkbride, band director at Mountain View.
"But she pleaded with them to stay. She would have felt as if
she failed. She was tough."
On April 18,
2005, Private First Class Huff died in Baghdad from injuries
she received the night before when the Humvee she was driving
was hit by a roadside bomb, according to the Army. Yesterday,
she became the 130th soldier killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom
to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. She was a member
of the 170th Military Police Company, 504th Military Police
Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade, based at Fort Lewis, Washington.
Her parents,
Robert Huff, 50, a retired police detective-turned-musician,
and Margaret Williams, 52, a former Marine and communications
supervisor for a suburban Tucson police department, accepted
the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Good Conduct Medal on her
behalf during the service.
Robert Huff,
who spoke with Army officials about the circumstances of his
daughter's death, said that she had spent the night of April
17 guarding an Iraqi police station. She and others in her
unit were headed back to their base on the outskirts of Baghdad
when an improvised explosive devise detonated next to the
Humvee's driver's side. Huff was the only one seriously
injured, according to Major Elizabeth Robbins, an Army
spokeswoman.
The blast
severed Huff's leg, and "there was nothing anyone could do and
she bled to death," Robert Huff said. Huff was supposed to
operate the machine gun on the top of the Humvee, he said, but
she was not strong enough to load the weapon quickly. So, the
petite soldier with a penchant for Disney ballads learned how
to pilot the monstrous Humvee.
Teachers at
Mountain View High said the community has been crushed by her
death. At a recent memorial service at Casas Adobes Baptist
Church in Tucson, the marching band played two of her favorite
ballads, Kirkbride said: one from "Beauty and the Beast,"
another from "The Little Mermaid." On the stage, a black
marching band hat—adorned with a plume of black and silver
feathers—sat next to her combat helmet, Kirkbride said.
Robert Huff
said he'll never forget what an Army official told him about
his daughter's last moments. As she was bleeding, she told a
sergeant next to her that she wanted him to pass along a
message to her parents. "He said, 'No, you'll be able to make
the call yourself.' Then she said: 'No, I don't think I can
make it. Tell my mom I love her, and tell my Dad good luck
with his album.' "
Sam Williams
Huff was barely a year out of her drum major's uniform, prom
dress and high school graduation cap and gown in April when
she was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
Her father
remembers the 18-year-old Fort Lewis military policewoman as a
"girlie girl and a soldier's soldier." In 10 months, she
journeyed from the teenage dramas of high school to the real
life drama of Iraq, where her sergeant cradled her in his arms
after a bomb exploded by her Humvee.
"She couldn't
have turned out any better," said her father, Bob, 51, a
retired Tucson police officer. "I'm prejudiced as hell, but
she was as close to perfect as anyone could have been. She was
just beautiful inside and out."
Sam Huff is
one of the 2,000 men and women in uniform who have died in
Iraq and one of 107 with ties to Washington, reflecting in
part this state's strong military presence in the war. In the
last two years, 8,000 soldiers from two Fort Lewis Stryker
brigades and 4,000 Washington National Guardsmen with the 81st
Combat Brigade Combat Team have been in Iraq. Those units have
returned, but smaller units from Washington
bases, as well as the state's National Guard and Reserve
segments, continue to deploy. Perhaps more than 2,000 are
there now.
Many who died
were like Huff, young, committed and willing to serve. They
left behind families who alternately worried and waited and
now grieve and search for answers. "I don't know what 2,000
means to me other than it's too damn many," Bob Huff said. The
Huffs feel for such parents as Cindy Sheehan who channel their
grief into efforts against the war, but they think such
protests are misplaced. "You can't blame anybody but the enemy
for what happens," Bob Huff said.
Bob Huff
served 25 years as a Tucson
police officer before retiring last year to make his longtime
passion, the guitar, a career. His wife, Maggie Williams, who
served with the Marine Corps in Vietnam 35 years ago, works
for the Oro Valley (Ariz.) Police Department. She is
undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.
They called
their daughter Sam. It was her name, not her nickname.
"In school
when she wanted to do something, she excelled," Huff's father
said, recalling her performance in a dance group. "She had a
smile as big as (the grill of) an Edsel."
Huff
surprised her parents when she made up her mind to join the
Army. It was a means to an education and a future in the FBI,
but "she and her fellow soldiers have embraced an ideal of
duty, honor and country in a big way," he said.
Despite 12-
to 15-hour days at war, she was enrolled in online college
courses. "She was definitely a girlie girl but was tough and
driven. She had a great heart," her father said.
"When it
happened to Sam there were a lot of broken hearts over there,"
Huff recalled. "She was known to everyone from the colonel on
down. She just was a go-getter and stuck out in a crowd. They
called her an 'exceptional soldier.' "
When she was
laid to rest at Arlington,
Huff's mother had her own Marine Corps dress blues put into
Sam's coffin. She said, "Bury them with her because I have no
one to give them to now."
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