Soldier just wanted to be `down range with the guys'
Army sergeant dies in Iraq when bus runs over bomb
By Bill Glauber and Li Fellers
Tribune staff reporters

Growing up in western Pennsylvania, Army Sgt. Joseph Minucci II spent hours in the woods playing "war" with friends.

Those games among the trees signaled a career calling for Minucci, who enlisted in the Army after graduating from high school in 1997 and was deployed with the 101st Airborne Division in the mountains of Afghanistan in March 2002.

A year later, Minucci parachuted into combat for the first time in northern Iraq with his new unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

"He didn't have to go," said his mother, Marcella. "But he told me, `I've got to go. I have to be down range with the guys.' "

On Nov. 13, Minucci, 23, of Richeyville, Pa., was killed when the bus he was in struck a roadside bomb in Samarra. He was helping secure a convoy for troops traveling between Balad and Kirkuk.

"He loved sports, played varsity soccer, played basketball all the time," his mother said. "He was a very spirited person and he always liked to tease and joke around. But there was a serious side to him."

His proudest possession was Ford Mustang GT sports car he purchased after returning from Afghanistan.

"He bought the car of his dreams," she said. "The guys in his company said he talked so much about how he loved that car."

But the passions of his life were a love of country and the military, his mother said.

"One of his friends spoke at the service and talked about how Joey loved the Army," she said. "Joey told his friends, `I'm here so you guys don't have to be. I'm doing what I feel I need to do for my families, my friends and my country.' "

His mother recently received a letter from her son's commanding officer, Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccito, who wrote of a May 17 incident when Minucci's calm manner "saved many lives of our soldiers."

Caraccito wrote, "Joey believed deeply in what he was doing."