Solon native 1st war casualty Man died at base in Qatar, Arabia

SOLON – Operation Enduring Freedom arrived Thursday at the modest home of Odber and Mary Andrews with a knock on the door at 1:30 a.m. A Somerset County deputy sheriff and three U.S. Air Force officers were on the front step. They had come to tell the Andrews that their only son was dead.

“It was different,” said Deputy Sheriff Dale Dunlap of the dead-of-night call. “We had to make sure we had matched the right name with the right people. We sure weren’t going to make an error on something as important as this.”

On Wednesday 37-year-old Master Sgt. Evander Earl Andrews became the first casualty of America’s war on terrorism when he was killed in a heavy equipment accident in Aludeid, Qatar, in the Arabian Peninsula. Andrews was a member of the 366th Civil Engineer Squadron based at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.

Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a defense department spokesman at Florida’s MacDill Air Force Base, said Andrews was at a “forward deployed location” supporting the campaign when the accident happened. A woman who answered the telephone Thursday morning at the Andrews home in Mountain Home said Andrews’ wife, Judy, was not saying anything but would be meeting with her minister and might have something to say later. The woman did not identify herself. The couple have four children between the ages of 2 and 10.

Back in Maine on Robbins Hill, off Route 201 leading into Solon, the green, single-story bungalow the Andrews call home seemed foreboding and understandably grim Thursday. The sergeant’s parents declined to speak with reporters. They reportedly did accept a call from Sen. Olympia J. Snowe who offered her condolences.

Others in town, recalled Andrews’ name but couldn’t remember much about him. After all, they pointed out, he had been gone since he enlisted right out of high school 18 years ago.

But Andrews was remembered by his biology teacher at Carrabec High School in North Anson as a “good student” and a “quiet, respectful kid” who avoided cliques and tried to make friends with all of his classmates. He was one of 15 Carrabec graduates in the Class of 1983 who enlisted in the service right after high school. In a region where career alternatives are largely limited to working in the woods or the paper mills, military alternatives are attractive.

Paul Thompson, a biology teacher at Carrabec since 1974, said many students were only just learning late Thursday afternoon that one of the high school’s own had become the first enlisted man to lose his life in Operation Enduring Freedom.

“It’s certainly a slap in the face in the sense that it really brings the reality of this war home,” he said.

A short distance from the Andrews home in Solon, Chuck Aloes was attempting to bring an American eagle to life in small, precisely-cut pieces of glass at his Stained Glass Wizard studio. His best efforts were continually interrupted by television and newspaper reporters who were calling or dropping by in search of anyone who might have known the Air Force sergeant as a teen-ager in Solon.

Aloes shook his head when asked. His wife, Elaine, might, he said. He only knew how much the news from far away reminded him of his stint in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam era.

“This is happening close to home, but we’re all Americans and everyone feels this,” said the 51-year-old veteran. “People in Solon will be hurt by this, but they’re also proud. It’s not like Vietnam when we came home and got spit on. Everyone’s behind this, this time.”

In a separate incident Wednesday, another soldier was seriously injured in Turkey after being trapped between two trucks, military officials said. Officials did not disclose the soldier’s name, the extent of his injuries or the exact location of the accident. He was airlifted to the military hospital in Germany.

“U.S. medical personnel on the scene performed initial lifesaving care,” after which the soldier was taken to a U.S. base in Incirlik, Turkey, said Maj. Brad Lowell, a U.S. Central Command spokesman at MacDill.

The soldier was in serious but stable condition Thursday at the U.S. military’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.