Staff Sgt. Ayman Taha, age 31

via Harry's Place

His father described him as a devout Muslim who believed that "the message of Islam is very simple . . . to believe in God and do good deeds."

Ayman Taha, born in Sudan, was also a member of the US Army special forces who gave up a promising academic career three years ago to enlist. He was sent to Iraq a year ago and was killed last Friday while preparing a munitions cache for demolition.

Again according to his father:

"He strongly agreed that what they were doing is good and that they were helping people in the Middle East to get out of the . . . historic bottleneck" that had confined them.