David Hickman, 23, was last of some 4,500 to die
(NEWSER) - On Nov. 14, just a month before the final US troops left Iraq, a 23-year-old soldier lost his life to an improvised explosive device. David Emanuel Hickman was the last American to be killed in a war that cost some 4,500 Americans their lives, the AP reports. With the US mission over, his family and friends are remembering him as a jokester with the nickname "Zeus" (because, he playfully said, his physique was so impressive the gods would be envious); as an outside linebacker who was the linchpin of a defense so complicated his high school had to scrap it after he graduated because no other teen could figure it out; as someone with a goal of one day joining the Special Forces, and who, in the words of a friend, "didn’t sign up to get his life on track. He wanted to be a physically and mentally elite soldier." More»
