Jeremiah P. McCleery, 24

McCleery was a Boy Scout and also joined the Civil Air Patrol. He had planned to join the Army right after his 2004 graduation from Portola High. During his senior year, his mother was diagnosed with cancer. After her death in 2005, McCleery went forward with his plan to enlist. McCleery and fellow Californian Spc. Jake R. Velloza, 22, of Inverness, were shot to death at a combat outpost in Hammam Alil, Iraq, north of Baghdad in an attack carried out by two gunmen later identified as Iraqi soldiers. The attack wounded three others.