Lexington Park soldier dies

Family arrives at bedside for farewell

Friday, July 21, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo E-Mail This Article | Print This Story   To help the Wallace family Contributions to help the family of Matthew Wallace can be made through checks made out to PRAG, with ‘‘Wallace family” written in the memo space. The checks may be delivered directly to the Patuxent River Assembly of God church on Route 4 in California, or mailed to the church at P.O. Box 828, California, MD 20619. The church may be reached at 301-862-9200.

His parents and three sisters flew overseas the day before to a hospital where doctors had been treating the unconscious 22-year-old cavalry scout for the second- and third-degree burns on 90 percent of his body.

‘‘They said he couldn’t survive, and the family chose to turn the ventilator off while they were together,” Louise Korade, a family friend, said Friday. ‘‘He passed very quickly and peacefully” at about 7:30 a.m. East Coast time.

Wallace was on patrol with his unit last Sunday in Baghdad, atop a Bradley fighting vehicle, when it was struck by a blast from an improvised explosive device. One soldier died, and Wallace arrived the next day at the regional medical facility in Landstuhl, Germany. His condition slightly improved earlier this week, his father said, before it quickly worsened and the wounded soldier no longer responded to stimulus.

Wallace’s parents and three sisters were notified last weekend of the young man’s injuries. They initially planned to fly to Texas this week to join him upon his expected arrival at a hospital near the 4th Infantry Division in Fort Hood, but as the soldier’s condition worsened, it became impossible to switch him from his ventilator at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to equipment that would sustain him for the flight overseas.

A problem with passports delayed the family’s departure, but they eventually arrived at Frankfort, Germany, according to Korade, who has known the family 20 years after meeting them as parishioners together at Patuxent River Assembly of God church in California.

Wallace attended Great Mills High School through his sophomore year, earned a GED in 2001 and worked at the Sheetz convenience store on Route 235 in California. He enlisted with the Army in February 2004, and was deployed to Kuwait last November, accompanied by his full unit as they entered Iraq in December. He briefly returned home on leave in the spring.

The church is collecting donations to assist the Wallace family.

Mary Wallace, the soldier’s mother, works as an operating-room nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital, and hospital spokesperson Nicole Strickland reported Thursday that its other employees can contribute their leave hours for the nurse’s use to have more time with her family.

E-mail John Wharton at jwharton@somdnews.com.