Laura Walsh, The Associated Press
Hartford, Conn. (AP) -- The first member of the Coast Guard to die in battle since Vietnam was being remembered Tuesday as a hero and a friend in Ridgefield, the small Connecticut town where he once lived.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan B. Bruckenthal was killed in a weekend attack on an Iraqi oil terminal.
Buckenthal attended Ridgefield High School and was a volunteer firefighter for the town when he was a teenager, said Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi.
“He would come to almost all the (fire) calls that he could,” said Michael Gabbianelli, a friend and fellow volunteer firefighter. “He was always there to help people.”
Bruckenthal, 24, a damage controlman from Smithtown, N.Y., had been assigned to the Coast Guard Air Station in the Miami suburb of Opa-Locka, Fla. He died of wounds suffered Saturday after suicide bombers in boats attacked pumping stations in the Persian Gulf.
The boats exploded as they were approached by U.S. naval teams.
Two sailors also were killed in the attack.
Bruckenthal played football for Ridgefield High School and was involved with a club that helped students who were new to the school adjust, said Linda Jaslow, Bruckenthal’s former high school guidance counselor. He often spoke of wanting to be either a police officer or a firefighter, she said.
“He was so friendly and outgoing. He was just a really, really nice kid,” Jaslow said.
Bruckenthal attended Ridgefield High School for two years, leaving in 1995 after his sophomore year, Jaslow said.
“He was always around though. It felt like he never left,” said Gabbianelli. “He would come up for weekends and in the summer and we’d always have a good time.”
They would often play pool and listen to music together, he said.
After moving from Ridgefield, Bruckenthal split time between his mother’s home in Virginia and his father’s house in Long Island.
Bruckenthal was scheduled to return from his second stint in Iraq in a month, Commander Glenn Grahl said. He had also served there from February to May last year, Grahl said.
“He was honored to do anything the Coast Guard asked him,” said Daniel Burgoyne, a friend and fellow petty officer. “He was a true patriot and he loved serving his country.”
Bruckenthal is married and his wife is three months pregnant, friends and family members said.
“We’re all trying to get through this,” said Bruckenthal’s uncle, Steven Bruckenthal, of Millwood, N.Y. “It’s been a shock from his 83-year-old grandfather, to his mother and father to his sister to his wife. He has a very large family.”
Marconi said Bruckenthal’s death is a loss that will be felt by the Ridgefield community and throughout the country.
“It makes you give more serious thought to why we are there,” he said. “When you see a young life like this lost in a war that is questionable, it makes it very difficult for everyone.”