28 officially from Kentucky have died in Iraq war

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Posted on Tue, Aug. 09, 2005
The Associated Press

The Department of Defense on Tuesday formally announced the death of a Kentucky Marine who was killed in Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, 21, of Lexington, Ky., died Saturday from an explosion caused by a suicide bomber, according to a Pentagon statement.

The announcement came one day after the death of a western Kentucky soldier was formally announced. The Pentagon said Monday that Sgt. 1st Class Robert V. Derenda, 42, of Ledbetter, Ky., died Friday when a civilian fuel truck collided with his Humvee. A Fort Campbell, Ky., soldier also died in that crash in Rubiah, Iraq.

Derenda was assigned to the U.S. Army Reserve's 1st Brigade, 98th Division, Rochester, N.Y., the Pentagon said. His family had previously confirmed the death.

With the latest official identifications, of Comley and Derenda, a total of 28 servicemembers with official Kentucky hometowns of record have died in the Iraq war. Seven of those were members of the Kentucky Army National Guard.

In addition, more than 60 soldiers based at Fort Campbell, on the Kentucky-Tennessee border, have died in the war. The latest was Sgt. 1st Class Brett E. Walden, 40, of Fort Walton Beach, Fla., who was killed in the same crash as Derenda. Walden was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). He is survived by his wife, Autumn, and 12-year-old daughter, Alexandria, of Dover, Pa.

Comley's death also had been previously confirmed by family members. He was assigned to the 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. He had been scheduled to come home in a few weeks
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Funeral arrangements for Comley were incomplete Tuesday. But officials at the Sayre School in Lexington, where Comley played baseball, announced the creation of a memorial fund in Comley's name. Proceeds will go to the development of a new athletics field at Sayre.

News of Comley's death threw a dark shadow this week over the Sayre campus, a small private school where it isn't unusual for two or even three generations of a family to have been educated. Comley's mother, Cathy Comley, attended Sayre, and his maternal grandmother, Dorothy Hancock, worked for the school for many years.

"Sayre is a small and pretty close-knit community, and this has affected all of us," said Thomas Grunwald, the school's director of alumni services. "This has been a hard day for everybody."
Grunwald remembered Comley as a "genuinely nice kid."

"He was very gregarious, very outgoing," Grunwald said of Comley.

Meanwhile, an Army Reserve commander in Paducah, Ky., said a memorial service will probably be held for Derenda, possibly in late September or after, when a Reserve unit from Paducah is scheduled to return from Iraq.

Lt. Col. Donald Stenzel, commander of the 3rd Battalion in Paducah, said Derenda will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery after funeral services in New York state where his family lives.

A longtime resident of Cheektowaga, N.Y., Derenda joined the 100th Division at Paducah when his chemical engineering job took him to Celanese Chemicals Ltd. in Calvert City, Ky.

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Information from:
Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com
The Paducah Sun, http://www.paducahsun.com

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