"'Mom, they would be a man short,'" Rowena Navarro recalled him telling her. "'Somebody's taking my place and that's not fair.' He said, 'They'd do the same thing for me.'" By late November, Navarro was messaging his family in a more reassured tone. "Send no more mail," he told them. His unit was pulling out Dec. 20.
One week before that pullout date, on Dec. 13, Navarro , 20, of Wildwood, Mo., died along with three other members of his unit when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad. They were the last four casualties among soldiers from the post in Iraq to date.
The soldiers - Navarro , Sgt. Brian Karim, Sgt. James Kesinger and Staff Sgt. Michael Zyla - were on a mission to secure an area for Iraq's historic parliamentary elections when they died.
Navarro had been accepted into Truman State University after graduating from high school. But he followed his father's path to the military instead; his dad, Jose, had been a Navy medic for 23 years.
Jose Navarro described Pete as a strong-willed young man and dedicated soldier. "He cared for the soldiers he worked with. He would do anything for his friends," Jose Navarro said. "And he told me he believed in what the mission was."
Pete's younger brother, Daniel Navarro , 18, had been killed in a car accident in Washington state on July 5. Pete came home on a two-week leave from the military to attend the funeral. "I wanted him to stay," Rowena Navarro said.
