[mrh2008]

Uncle Richard AKA "Kato" R.I.P

MENIFEE -- A gold wedding band hung from a necklace around Maria Gadsden's neck as she sat in the living room of her Menifee home on Tuesday with her 3-year-old daughter, Kelly, on her lap.

The ring belonged to her husband, Richard Bruce. Having it around her neck has been the only closure she has felt since learning that Bruce was killed in Iraq last week. He was 49.

"I just feel more at peace now," said Gadsden, 39. "It was just our symbol of being together."

Bruce, a former Navy SEAL, was working as a contract security guard for Blackwater USA, a North Carolina-based security consulting firm that has several hundred workers in Iraq, under contract to the U.S. government and various private companies. Company officials informed Gadsden last Thursday that her husband was killed when a speeding vehicle he was traveling in hit a ditch and rolled over.

The incident marks yet another casualty among civilian security contractors working in Iraq. Four Blackwater employees were killed last weekend when their convoy was ambushed on its way to the airport. Four other Blackwater workers were killed and mutilated in Fallujah on March 31.

Hundreds of former military personnel have gone to work for Blackwater in Iraq and are paid lucrative wages for the dangerous work. But Gadsden said the $600 a day contract her husband got wasn't the driving force behind his decision.

"He was just an adventurous kind of guy," Gadsden said. "He had been talking about doing these kinds of things for a long time."

Gadsden met Bruce in 1982 at the Naval Amphibious base in Coronado. She was serving food there and he was training to become a SEAL, the commando arm of the Navy, she said.

"That was his attraction," Gadsden said. "He was a warrior."

After leaving the Navy in 1987, Bruce became a deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The couple married in 1999, but separated two years later.

Bruce left the sheriff's department in 2001 to start a hunting and fishing company in Alaska. Although they kept in touch, the couple remained separated and Gadsden continued her career as a child development teacher at Mt. San Jacinto College. She also pursued graduate studies.

Meanwhile, Bruce ran his company in Alaska, but also began searching for contract work to do abroad. Gadsden said he applied for work in Liberia and Colombia, but those opportunities fell through. So when he was offered a security job in Kuwait this year, he took it.

"I didn't want him to go, but I knew he had to do this," Gadsden said.

While there, Bruce ran into some fellow former SEALs who managed to land him a more risky job with Blackwater in Iraq -- something Gadsden said her husband wanted.

"He actually wanted more dangerous work than that," Gadsden said. "This would help him get established."

The couple rekindled their relationship prior to his leaving and had plans to go on vacation together in August, when Bruce would get a break from his work in Iraq. But those hopes were dashed forever last Thursday when Gadsden got a knock on her door early Thursday morning from a Blackwater representative, dressed in a suit.

Gadsden said the company had little information for her regarding the death. She just got a call Tuesday that his body would be arriving at LAX from Kuwait today. Blackwater officials could not be reached for comment this week.

Gadsden managed to recover his wedding band out of a suitcase that he had mailed from Iraq a month ago.

Deputy Marcelo Sampedro worked with Bruce at the sheriff's department and the two have stayed good friends. Reached by phone Tuesday, Sampedro said Bruce called him from a satellite phone in Baghdad a week before his death.

"Rich said it was intense over there," Sampedro said. "For Rich to say that, you know it was intense."

Sampedro got the call Monday while he was on patrol that his friend had been killed. He said his friend was a "down to Earth" guy who used to teach boxing to at-risk youth to get them off the streets.

"He was like a brother to me," Sampedro said. "I admired him and looked up to him for all the things that he had done."

Gadsden said she has already been visited by former SEALs and friends of her husband this week. She is planning to hold a formal burial ceremony at Riverside National Cemetery so that the couple's daughter can "know something" about her father.

"I want her to know him as a man who was loved by many people, who had a great sense of humor and would have done anything to protect his country," she said.

[Pink.]

sounds like he died doing something he loved to do. the sad part is that he died first fo all, and that it was in such a manner.

RIP soldier.

[mrh2008]

Originally Posted by Pink. ↗

sounds like he died doing something he loved to do. the sad part is that he died first fo all, and that it was in such a manner.

RIP soldier.

I was 15 at the time. My father shared a small portion of imformation about what he heard about the accident, it was not a simple case of a HMMWV driving too fast on a dirt road that resulted in an accident. The convoy he was in was escorting a politician and came under small arms fire, they fired back killing several attackers and the rest fled, His HMMWV started a pursuit (he was not the driver) and at some point an RPG was fired at the HMMWV and it was forced off the road into a ditch (either that or get hit by the RPG) and the HMMWV rolled. I believe there were 5 Blackwater employees includeing my uncle, 4 of them walked away without serious injuries but my uncle suffered a broken neck and died at the scene. RIP uncle.

[smackem]

Thank you for sharing.

[Black Knight]

Originally Posted by mrh2008 ↗

I was 15 at the time. My father shared a small portion of imformation about what he heard about the accident, it was not a simple case of a HMMWV driving too fast on a dirt road that resulted in an accident. The convoy he was in was escorting a politician and came under small arms fire, they fired back killing several attackers and the rest fled, His HMMWV started a pursuit (he was not the driver) and at some point an RPG was fired at the HMMWV and it was forced off the road into a ditch (either that or get hit by the RPG) and the HMMWV rolled. I believe there were 5 Blackwater employees includeing my uncle, 4 of them walked away without serious injuries but my uncle suffered a broken neck and died at the scene. RIP uncle.

Thanks for sharing and I am sorry for your loss. As I am ex-military I have all the respect in the World for those who serve in any capacity.

Your uncle truly was a warrior.

[Airbornemama]

He was a great man,you are lucky to have him as family.R.I.P.

[Pink.]

Originally Posted by mrh2008 ↗

I was 15 at the time. My father shared a small portion of imformation about what he heard about the accident, it was not a simple case of a HMMWV driving too fast on a dirt road that resulted in an accident. The convoy he was in was escorting a politician and came under small arms fire, they fired back killing several attackers and the rest fled, His HMMWV started a pursuit (he was not the driver) and at some point an RPG was fired at the HMMWV and it was forced off the road into a ditch (either that or get hit by the RPG) and the HMMWV rolled. I believe there were 5 Blackwater employees includeing my uncle, 4 of them walked away without serious injuries but my uncle suffered a broken neck and died at the scene. RIP uncle.

thanks for sharing that.

I am sure he was a great guy...I appreciate all of the guys who serve with purpose and conviction.

[bbybria93]

Hi, I was 11 when he died. I am the cousin of his daughter. If possible, I would like to see if I can get you to meet Kelly. I know she would like to know more about her fathers side. He was an amazing man and influenced a lot of my decisions that I make today. I try to visit him when I go to see my grandfather, they are buried not too far apart.