Soldier from Moses Lake National Guard unit killed

Jeremiah Schmunk called mother night of death to say he was okay

Specialist Jeremiah Schmunk, a 2002 Warden High School graduate and member of the Moses Lake-based 161st Infantry Battalion, was killed Thursday outside of Baghdad.

Schmunk, 20, was driving a Humvee when it came under hostile fire, Col. Rick Patterson, spokesman for the Washington National Guard, said. No other soldiers were injured in the incident, he said.

Schmunk is the second soldier from central Washington to die in the Iraq conflict. The first was Staff Sgt. Marvin Best, 33, a Marine from Prosser, Wash., who was killed June 19, while fighting in Iraq's Al Anbar province.

Schmunk is the second member of the Washington Army National Guard to be killed during the war, Patterson said.

Schmunk's body is expected to be flown in to Washington state on Wednesday, Shirley Schmunk, his mother, said. A full military funeral is tentatively scheduled for Saturday morning at Warden High School, she said.

Those interested in delivering memorial flowers or cards for Schmunk can do so at the Twin Towers memorial at Five Corners in Moses Lake, Grant County Commissioner Leroy Allison, who is also from Warden, said.

Shirley Schmunk said her son had wanted to join the military since he was very young. In a telephone interview from her home in Kennewick, she said he once called a recruiter at the age of nine in response to a commercial where Uncle Sam pointed and said, "We want you."

"He said, 'Mom we need to call them. They want me,'" Shirley Schmunk said.

Jeremiah Schmunk joined the Washington National Guard after he graduated from high school, where he had been a member of Warden's championship wrestling team.

He had wanted to join the regular military, but Shirley said she convinced him to join the National Guard because she felt it would be safer, and she wanted him to go to college.

Jeremiah Schmunk had attended classes at Columbia Basin College for three months before his unit was called to full duty and he had to withdraw, Shirley Schmunk said.

Jeremiah signed up for the 161st Infantry Battalion with two of his closest high school friends, Greg Talbot and Justin Martinez.

Martinez was with Schmunk when he was killed.

Lynn Talbot, who is Greg Talbot's father, said he spoke to his son shortly after Schmunk was killed, and both boys are still shook up by the incident.

Talbot said he had known Schmunk since he was in kindergarten, and he was very popular among other children and adults alike.

"He was a very nice young man, well-liked by most everyone who knew him," Talbot said.

In a news release from the Washington Army National Guard, Gov. Gary Locke added his condolences.

"I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Specialist Jeremiah Schmunk, a Washington National Guard soldier," Locke said in the news release. "My sincerest condolences go out to his family, friends and fellow guardsmen. I ask all Washingtonians to keep our soldiers in their thoughts as they carry out their duties in Iraq."

Schmunk graduated from boot camp at Ft. Benning in Georgia, the same place his father attended, Shirley Schmunk said.

His father died in 1996 when Jeremiah was in middle school, and Shirley said she enrolled him in acting classes in Seattle to help him cope with losing his father.

He succeeded so well, she said, that he appeared on model Jenny McCarthy's short-lived sitcom and in some commercials, all of which were shot in Burbank, Calif.

Jeremiah even had an agent, which he got when he was sitting in a waiting room in Seattle and drew a picture of two ladies sitting there, Shirley said. One was a talent agent, and soon Jeremiah was competing with young actors such as Jonathan Taylor Thomas (one of the child actors from the television series "Home Improvement") for roles.

Shirley Schmunk received a phone call from Jeremiah on the evening before he was killed.

"He called me to tell me how much he loved me, and he wanted me to know he was okay," she said.