ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Thursday, May 12, 2005

By GAYLON VICKERS, -- Mackenzie Fry contributed to this story.
Enterprise Staff Writer

Flags at Gahanna-Jefferson schools and Gahanna city buildings were flying at half staff this week in honor of a Gahanna son.

Army Pfc. Nicolas E. Messmer, known to his friends as Nick, was killed in action at about 2:30 p.m. May 8 near Samarra, Iraq, Department of Defense press releases said.

Messmer, 20, was the son of Rick and Shirley Messmer of North Hamilton Road. He entered the Army after graduating from Gahanna Lincoln High School in 2003.

Messmer was engaged to be married to Mary Murphy, also a 2003 graduate of Gahanna-Lincoln. She is a student at Ohio State University.

"He was very brave. I am very proud of him. His family loved him. We all did," Murphy said. She said her fiance was "wonderful, funny, never angry and always smiling."

They last talked on Saturday, May 7. "He was excited. He had been on guard duty in a tower, but he was excited because he was going to be doing house raids."

Murphy said Messmer's tour of duty in Iraq was to have ended on July 24, his birthday. She and his family were hoping he would be home soon after that.

Murphy said Messmer's enlistment in the Army was to have ended on Sept. 18, 2006.

After that, "We had so many plans," Murphy said.

He was always thinking of the future, she said. When they talked, sometimes he wanted to buy a truck, sometimes to buy a motorcycle.

"He wanted to be a firefighter, he wanted to be a cop, he wanted to own his own lawn-care service. He wanted to be so many things. Now he can't."

Gahanna's St. Matthew's Church is scheduled to be the site of Messmer's funeral mass. The family on Tuesday learned that his body was in Dover, Del.

Messmer was in B Company, First Battalion, 506 Infantry Regiment, Air Assault. The last time Messmer was in town, he wore his combat infantryman's badge, his jump wings and the battle patch of the unit.

According to the Department of Defense, the vehicle Messmer and others were riding in was struck by an improvised explosive device about 2:30 p.m., May 8, near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.

The Department of Defense said another soldier was wounded in the same action.

Gahanna-Jefferson school district spokeswoman Mary Otting said Messmer was a student at LHS for his high school years, except for a semester he spent at the Eastland Fairfield Technical Schools and Career Center.

Both the school district and Gahanna city said their flags were lowered in Messmer's memory.

He also is survived by four brothers, Ricky, Joey, Dusty and Zack.

Also in Iraq, a Pickerington Marine was killed in action May 8.

Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, 24, died in Ubaydi as the result of enemy fire, the Department of Defense reported Monday.

Derga, a 1999 graduate of Pickerington High School, was assigned to Marine Forces Reserves 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division. He was a member of the Columbus-based Lima Company.

In a posting May 3 on the "Reach a Marine" Web site, Derga said his unit had just returned from a week-long mission and was leaving right away for another, which he said would "be even longer." He described an "unusual" hailstorm that had hit the night before.

"I am so ready to come home," he wrote.

According to a biography of Derga on the Web site, he worked at ISG Columbus Processing before he was deployed.

He also attended Columbus State University, where he majored in EMS and fire science, and had served as an EMT and firefighter in Baltimore, Ohio, for three years.