A Soldier's Perspective

Army sergeant had 'heart the size of the entire state' (Tissue Alert)

This is a great tribute to a fallen hero by Steve Liewer of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Ricky Vaughn popped into coach Steve Stone's life eight years ago as a skinny Navy brat in a football uniform, his mouthful of braces fixed in a crooked grin.

“He was always pulling something,” said Stone, Vaughn's football and wrestling coach at Serra High School in San Diego. “I could run the living crud out of him and I could never get rid of that smile.”

Last month, Vaughn came home from Iraq in the uniform of an Army sergeant, his coffin draped with an American flag. He died April 7 on the first patrol of his second tour in Iraq. He was leading members of his platoon into hostile fire after an attack on his convoy in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood.

Vaughn was 22.

Richard A. Vaughn was born in Northridge, the son of a Navy sailor. His family moved from place to place, but Vaughn spent the latter half of his youth living in the Murphy Canyon military housing area in Tierrasanta.

Vaughn showed up for football practice at Serra High School as an undersized wide receiver with modest talent. He worked like a fool, though, his coach said.

“He wasn't a stellar athlete, but he had a heart the size of the entire state,” Stone said.

As a freshman wrestler, Vaughn became friends with a senior named Randy Rosacker.

Rosacker lived at Murphy Canyon, too. His father, like Vaughn's, was a Navy chief petty officer. Rosacker, a gifted athlete, passed up college sports scholarships to join the Marine Corps.

He kept in touch with Vaughn even after he deployed to Kuwait in early 2003 for the invasion of Iraq. Rosacker was killed on the fourth day of the war.

Rosacker's death changed Vaughn's life. His half-formed idea of joining the military hardened into a clear plan.

“It became a little more real-life for him after Randy died,” said Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Fowler, 30, of Lemon Grove, an Army recruiter who volunteered as an assistant coach for the Serra wrestling team.

Read the rest.