Sierra Vista family mourns soldier

Repacking his Army bags as his 70-year-old grandmother looked on, the young infantryman tucked a prayer book and prayer beads into the pocket of his combat uniform, then poured out his heart to the family matriarch.

"He was very scared the night before he left. He kept telling me over and over again how much he loved me," Bernadine Schockmel, recalled of her 19-year-old grandson.

"He was proud of being in the Army, but I'd be lying if I didn't say he was scared to go back."

One week later, the private first class was killed in action, felled by a rocket-propelled grenade in Ramadi the day after rejoining his combat unit.

Collin Schockmel, who grew up surrounded by soldiers in Sierra Vista, died on Monday. He is the 23rd service member with ties to the region to be claimed by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His death touched off a wave of grief in two states, from Southern Arizona to Richwood, Texas, in the cities where many of his loved ones reside.

His mother, Kristin Shinn, lives in Sierra Vista, as does his sister, Emily Schockmel. Another sister, Heather Shinn, and two brothers, Brian Shinn, Jr. and Charles Shinn, live in Tucson.

Kristin Shinn learned of her son's death Tuesday, when two Army officers arrived at her workplace.

"I saw the green. You just know it's bad news," Shinn said Wednesday. Her son's death has not yet been confirmed by the Defense Department, and funeral plans are pending.

Bernadine Schockmel, who lives in Texas, said the family lived in that state during her grandson's early years. When Collin was 9, his mother remarried and moved her young family to Sierra Vista.

Collin Schockmel attended Buena High School there, but left Arizona at 16, returning to Texas to live with his grandmother. There he earned his GED, and joined the Army at 18.

Bernadine Schockmel said she suspects her grandson developed an affinity for the Army during his time in Sierra Vista, home to Fort Huachuca, Arizona's largest military installation, 75 miles southeast of Tucson. "In his most formative years, he was influenced by living in Sierra Vista. Some of his role models were military people," she said.

Collin Schockmel had been in Iraq since October with a unit from Fort Carson in Colorado. During his recent holiday visit, he split his time between Arizona and Texas.

Schockmel described her grandson as a "very spiritual person," who became a fixture at an Episcopal church he attended after moving back to Texas.

"He joined the choir and the youth group and the men's group. He was there probably three nights a week," she said. "He would help out moving furniture, hanging things; anything that needed to be done, he was always right there.

"You would not believe how many people loved him," she said.

When he left for Iraq the first time, Collin Schockmel took with him a prayer book and a set of prayer beads his grandmother had made for him. She could tell the keepsake had been well-used in wartime because it got so worn that the string broke, and she restrung the beads for him over the holidays.

As he headed back to combat, Collin took two books with him, and the titles he chose were revealing, his grandmother said.

One was the C.S. Lewis classic "The Screwtape Letters," a story of the temptation and salvation of a World War II soldier who dies during an air raid.

The other book was the Quran, the holy book of Islam. "Collin worked with Iraqis, and they raised issues around religion. He was a real strong Episcopalian, but he wanted to know for himself what those guys were talking about," she said.

"We will miss him terribly, she said. "He was a young man with so much potential."

Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have claimed 22 other service members with ties to Tucson and Southern Arizona. They are:

• Marine Sgt. Aron Cody Blum, 22, died Dec. 28 at Naval Medical Center in San Diego after an illness. He'd been evacuated from Al Anbar province, Iraq, on Dec. 8. The 2002 Sahuaro High School graduate joined the Marines in 2002 and was assigned to an aerial refueler squadron.

• Marine Lance Cpl. Budd M. Cote, 21, was killed Dec. 11, along with two other Marines while the three men conducted combat operations in Al Anbar province. He died less than two weeks before his first anniversary.

• Army Cpl. Casey L. Mellen, 21, of Huachuca City, died Sept. 25 in Balad, Iraq, after his patrol group was hit with small-arms fire during combat in Mosul, Iraq. Mellen was assigned to Fort Lewis, south of Tacoma, Wash.

• Navy Hospitalman Chadwick T. "Chad" Kenyon, 20, a 2004 graduate of Mountain View High School, died when an explosive struck the vehicle in which he was riding during combat operations in Al Anbar province on Aug. 20.

• Army Sgt. Mark R. Vecchione, 25, who graduated from Sahuaro High School in 1999 but then moved to Cape Cod, died on July 18 in Ramadi, Iraq, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his M1A1 Abrams tank.

• Army 1st Sgt. Bobby Mendez, 38, a father of three who'd been stationed at Fort Huachuca, was killed in action in Baghdad on April 27 — his son's birthday — when his vehicle was hit by a homemade bomb.

• Marine Cpl. Brandon Scott Schuck, 21, the father of an infant son and a Safford High School graduate, was killed by an improvised explosive device Feb. 6 as his unit patrolled the violent streets of Baghdad.

• Army Spc. Tommy Byrd, 21, a 2003 graduate of Santa Rita High School, was one of five soldiers killed Oct. 15, 2005, when their assault vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad.

• Marine Master Sgt. Kenneth Hunt, Jr., 40, a father of two and a 1983 Santa Rita High School graduate, died Oct. 12, 2005, of burns sustained July 24 when his vehicle hit an anti-tank mine in Iraq.

• Army Sgt. Kenneth Ross, 24, a 1999 graduate of Mountain View High School, died Sept. 25, 2005, in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

• Army Pfc. Sam Huff, 18, a 2004 graduate of Mountain View High School, died April 17, 2005, when a roadside bomb hit her convoy in Baghdad.

• Army Reserve Sgt. Tina Time, 22, a native of American Samoa and a Pima Community College student, killed Dec. 13, 2004, in a vehicle accident in Iraq.

• Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Lucero, 19, a 2003 graduate of Sunnyside High School, killed Nov. 27, 2004, by hostile fire in Iraq. Survived by a fiancée and then-16-month-old son.

• Army Spc. Robert Unruh, 25, a combat engineer, died Sept. 25, 2004, when enemy forces attacked his unit in Iraq. His 45-year-old mother died of a heart attack hours after seeing his body.

• Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Zurheide Jr., 20, whose wife was nine months pregnant at his funeral, was killed in hostile fire in Iraq on April 12, 2004.

• Marine Cpl. Jeff Lawrence, 22, was hit by a homemade bomb near Fallujah on July 6, 2004, just days before his wife gave birth.

• Army Sgt. Michael Merila of Sierra Vista was killed in an explosion when his convoy was attacked in northern Iraq the day before his 24th birthday, on Feb. 16, 2004.

• Army Sgt. Sean Cataudella, 28, a father of three, including a then- infant son he never met, died Aug. 30, 2003, when his vehicle rolled into a canal near Baghdad.

• Army Sgt. Benjamin Biskie, 27, was killed when a makeshift bomb hit his convoy north of Baghdad on Christmas Eve 2003. He had a 6-year-old son.

• Army Spc. Isaac Campoy, 21, a Douglas resident who graduated from Douglas High School in 2001, was killed when his tank hit a land mine in Iraq on Oct. 28, 2003.

• Chief Warrant Officer Christopher Nason, 39, of Los Angeles, stationed at Fort Huachuca, died Nov. 23, 2003, when the vehicle he was in collided with a tanker truck in Iraq.

• Air Force Airman 1st Class Raymond Losano, 24, a former Pima Community College student, was killed in an ambush in Afghanistan on April 25, 2003.

Arizona Daily Star