Sgt. Jacob Lee Butler , HHC, 1st Bn., 41st Inf., 3rd Brigade, 1st Armor

April 1, 2003

The owner of a pharmacy in Wellsville called Jacob Lee Butler a "good hometown kid." A store clerk, Denise Ard, remembered Butler when he worked with her sons at a local grocery store. Butler was energetic, but polite - a kid with an "inner stride" who wanted to do something with his life, said another local. Jim Butler said his son, who everyone called Jake, grew up in a tight-knit family and he strived to do things right. "He would take any little thing he could and make it as close to perfect as he could," the father said. "He tried to make everything even better. That's just Jake."

Butler graduated from Wellsville High School in 1996 and joined the Army two years later. In the late 1990s, he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, when he received orders for Kuwait. His family tied a yellow ribbon to a tree in the front yard of their rural home. They waited for Jake to come home and cut it down.

The family took a picture of him - he wears a flannel jacket, has a clean-shaven face and closely cropped head of hair - as he clipped the ribbon that December.

He came to Fort Riley in 2001 and was a cavalry scout with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, when his unit deployed to Iraq. He died April 1, 2003, in Assamawah, Iraq, when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his vehicle. He was 24.

At the time of his death, his family had placed wood slats on their kitchen floor to cover damage from a recent fire. The family said five squares - one for each of the family's five sons - will be part of the finished floor pattern. Jake's father told a local newspaper that he wanted to place a gold star on Jacob Butler 's square.