Friday, June 17, 2005 | 11:09 a.m.
Silverado High School graduate Anthony Cometa, was killed in Iraq on Thursday, one day after his 21st birthday, his mother, Nancy Fontana, said today from Rochester, N.Y., where she was awaiting the arrival of her son's father, Henderson resident Joe Cometa.
Anthony Cometa, a Nevada Army National Guard specialist, was the third Las Vegas Valley resident to die in Iraq this week. He was the first member of the Nevada Army National Guard to die in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Cometa was raised in New York but had lived in the valley since 1999. He attended Green Valley High School for his freshman year but spent the next three years at Silverado. He was on the wrestling team and graduated in 2002, his mother said.
"He loved Vegas," Fontana said. "He loved the weather and the fast pace."
Cometa was last back in Nevada in February on a 15-day leave, his mother recalled. At a stopover at an airport in Texas, he struck up a conversation with a stranger and gave him an Iraqi bill as a souvenir. The grateful man insisted that Cometa take $50.
A short time later Cometa met a young female airport bartender who was headed off for a spring break trip. He gave her the $50.
"He told her, 'I want you to have a good time on me,' " Fontana said. "That's the kind of guy he was. Everybody remembers him as a free-spirited boy. He was never afraid of anything. He was very loving, very tender. He died doing what he wanted to do. He was keeping us all safe."
Cometa was a member of the 1864th Transportation Company based in Kuwait. He was part of a convoy that routinely ferried food, ammunition and other supplies to troops in Iraq. Fontana said two officers informed her on Thursday that her son's Humvee had been overturned and that he had been fatally injured.
Cometa's mother said he always called her right before he left and right after he returned from the supply missions.
"He instant messaged me on Tuesday and said, 'We're still in Iraq, we've been delayed. I'll be back on Wednesday,' which was his birthday," Fontana said, her voice giving way to sobs.
Cometa will be buried in New York likely next week, Fontana said. His body was to return to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware possibly this weekend and was expected to be in Rochester by Wednesday, she said.
Cometa had enlisted in December 2003 and deployed with the 1864th Medium Transportation Company to southwest Asia in August 2004, according to a press release issued by the Nevada National Guard this morning.
His mother said he had told her that he was sent to Kuwait in November.
The Guard announcement about his death said that Cometa had been riding in the turret of an armored Humvee about 10 miles from the Kuwaiti border about 7:15 a.m. Thursday Iraqi time. The driver apparently lost control of the vehicle and it rolled, the Guard's statement noted.
Two other members of the 1864th were injured in the rollover, the release said. One of the guardsmen was treated and released back to his unit and the other was still being treated at a medical facility this morning.
At the time, Cometa's unit was providing convoy escort protection to the 2168th Transportation Company of the Iowa Army National Guard, the Guard's statement said.
Big. Gen. Cindy Kirkland, the adjutant general for Nevada, said Cometa had volunteered for his assignment as a member of the gun escort platoon.
"Spc. Cometa was very well-respected by all of the soldiers in his company and a reputation of being a hard worker with a 'can-do' attitude and an engaging smile," Kirkland said.
His mother said Cometa loved music and played his bass guitar in Kuwait, and he hoped to break into the music business after coming back to Nevada, his mother said. He recently sent his mother an instrumental piece that he and a friend produced on his laptop, she said. It was more mellow than a lot of the hard rock music he listens to, she said.
"It was awesome," she said, with a little laugh. "I was surprised it was something I could listen to."
In addition to his parents, Cometa is survived by a 23-year-old brother, Joseph Cometa, and a 5-year-old stepbrother, Matthew Fontana.
The news of yet another former resident of the valley's death in the war hit home for Tuesday Perkins. Her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Kelwin Perkins, is a member of the same Nevada Army National Guard unit that Cometa was serving with, the 1864th Transportation Co.
"I don't want to believe that it's true," Perkins said.
On Thursday night she said he had not heard reports of a casualty from her husband or the National Guard.
Perkins said that all of the soldiers' families are close and support one another as they manage the distance and uncertainty of service life.
"I think of all of the military as being family," she said. "Each one of us can relate to each other because we're all going through the same thing."
Perkins said the roughly 160 soldiers in the Henderson-based unit are constantly with each other.
"It's their brothers or sisters. To lose somebody would be really traumatic," she said.
The 1864th had yet to record a single casualty since being mobilized in August and sent to Iraq in November, Perkins said.
She said the news of the death of two other local servicemen earlier this week made her think about the impact on families.
"My heart goes out to all the family members to have to go through that loss, because we all know that the potential is there for our soldiers," Perkins said.
"You listen to the news and you know that it has to be traumatic on the spouses and their units."
Cpl. Jesse Jaime, 22, of Henderson and three fellow Marines died Wednesday when their vehicle hit an explosive device near Al Ramadi, Iraq, the Defense Department reported.
Jaime's family said his body is expected to return home today.
Army Cpl. Stanley Lapinski, 35, of Las Vegas died Saturday in Baghdad, when an explosive device detonated near his vehicle, according to the Defense Department.
Lapinski and Jaime were the 14th and 15th servicemen from Nevada to be killed since fighting began in Afghanistan in 2001.
Rebecca Zisch, who used to date Lapinski, was stunned to hear of a 16th local casualty.
"Oh no, there's another one?" she said.
"I was sensitive to any death that I heard about," Zisch said. "It makes it more personal with the death of someone I love."
The terrible news of three deaths in one week made the cost of war and the magnitude of a soldier's sacrifice all too apparent, she said.
"I hope everybody continues to remember that every life is precious and that every young man and woman who is serving out country is giving the most precious gift they can."
A memorial for Lapinski is to be held 5 p.m. Sunday at Champagnes Cafe, 3557 S. Maryland Parkway.
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