Scott McClean Love – First Lieutenant, United States Army

NEWS RELEASES from the United States Department of Defense
No. 528-06 IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 08, 2006

DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.  They died in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, on June 7, 2006, when an improvised explosive device detonated near their HMMWV during combat operations.  Both soldiers were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, Baumholder, Germany.

Killed were:

First Lieutenant Scott M. Love, 32, of Knoxville, Tennessee
Private First Class David N. Crombie, 19, of Winnemucca, Nevada


Memorial for soldier killed in Iraq set

Grissom graduate Scott Love died June 7 in bombing
Thursday, June 15, 2006

A memorial service will be held Friday at 7 p.m. at Aldersgate Methodist Church for Army First Lieutenant Scott McClean Love, 32, a 1992 graduate of Grissom High School who was killed in Iraq June 7, 2006.

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The funeral will be Monday at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. Love died when a bomb detonated near his vehicle in Ar Ramadi.

He began his military career three years after he received his bachelor’s degree in cinema and film at Florida State University in 1996.

He enlisted in the Army in military intelligence and completed Arabic linguist training at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California. After training, he was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas, where he finished as the Distinguished Honor Graduate in his Noncommissioned Officer Academy class.

While stationed at Fort Hood, he deployed to Kuwait in November 2001. He attended Officers Candidate School and received his commission at Fort Benning, Georgia. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division in Baumholder, Germany, in February 2005 and deployed to Kuwait, serving as a mechanized infantry platoon leader in November 2005. He and his unit were deployed from Kuwait to Ar Ramadi, Iraq in May.

Love is survived by his daughter, Vina McClean Love; her mother, Aimee Ann Love of Huntsville; his parents, Mac and Lydia Love of Huntsville; his brother, Daniel Robert Love, a Marine stationed in Okinawa; a niece, Mai Love of Florence; an uncle, Bill Love of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and his children Ashley and Ian Love of Madison. He is also survived by his aunts, Cathy Burgess of Ohatchee and Imogene Phillips of Jacksonville, Florida,

The family will receive visitors in the Aldersgate Fellowship Hall after the service. The church is at Bailey Cove and Mountain Gap roads.

Visitation will be Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Murphy Funeral Home, 4510 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, Va. Friends and family will meet at the funeral home Monday at 2 p.m. and leave for the graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Army Emergency Relief. Donations can be mailed to Army Community Services, Army Emergency Relief, Bldg. 3338 Redeye Road, Redstone Arsenal, AL 35898.


Soldier’s Letter to Daughter Illuminates a Tender Side

Victim of Iraq Explosion Is Buried With Full Honors
By Stephanie McCrummen
Courtesy of the Washington Post
Tuesday, June 20, 2006

A few hours before Lieutenant Scott McLean Love was buried yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery, his father stood before a crowd of family and friends to tell them about all the other things that his 32-year-old son was, besides another good soldier who died in Iraq.

“I have some notes,” Robert Love began inside Murphy’s funeral home, a few miles from the cemetery. “It’s the only way I can do this.”

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A horse-drawn caisson carries the flag-draped coffin of Lt. Scott Love to his grave site at Arlington National Cemetery. Love died June 6 from injuries suffered when a makeshift bomb detonated in Ramadi

His son was an artist, Love said, a genius with a sketch pad. During high school in Huntsville, Ala., he was an actor, too, playing Felix in “The Odd Couple” and an old man in another play.

He was a writer of screenplays and of long letters to his young daughter, Vina, his father said, and he invited everyone to read the one on the back of the program.

“Vina,” Scott Love had written from someplace in Iraq. “I had a dream with you in it the other night. . . . We were at the beach and we made a gigantic sand castle. We made an enormous castle with candy cane stripes and we climbed to the top of the tower. From there, we could see far out to sea. . . . You told stories about friendly rhinos and magical forests and adventures on the moon and I listened and I laughed. The sky turned pink, then orange, then purple. When the winking stars came out, we climbed down out of the tower and we walked on the sand with no shoes on. I love you, Vina. Dad.”

The mourners made their way to their cars, people who had come from Alabama and a buddy of Love’s who came from Walter Reed Army Medical Center wearing a neck brace and using a cane. Love’s mother thanked him for coming and said she would love to hear stories about her son, “to learn more about him.”

In the lobby, a couple of men were talking, and one of them said, “These kids” and shook his head, and the other one said, “Unbelievable.”

Love, who grew up in Huntsville, died June 6, 2006,  from injuries suffered when a makeshift bomb detonated near his Humvee during combat operations in Ramadi, Defense Department officials said. He was assigned to the Army’s 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, based in Baumholder, Germany.

He received full honors at Arlington in a service that began about 4 p.m. when three Army officers, their gold medals rattling, walked across the stiff and yellowing grass.

An Army band followed down the road, then the horse-drawn caisson carrying Love’s coffin, then Love’s mother and father and Vina in a white dress, and then a line of white headlights.

The sky had been pale blue, but a thunderstorm was blowing in, and moments before, cemetery workers had rolled a tent to Grave Site No. 8399, where the coffin was now, draped with a U.S. flag. People sat in folding chairs facing it; others stood off in the grass.

It started raining. A row of soldiers fired three shots into the air, people opened big golf umbrellas, and a bugler played taps.

The casket team folded the flag into a triangle while the band played “America the Beautiful,” and when they were finished, Love’s mother, Lydia, leaned over to Vina.

She pointed to the man in the white hat and yellow-striped pants, now holding the triangle, stars facing up. He leaned over to the little girl, and, handing her the flag, said a few words.


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