Will Higgins

will.higgins@indystar.com

Memphis, Ind. – U.S. Marine Jordan L. Spears was in his seat of the V-22 Osprey as the aircraft took off from the deck of the USS Makin Island.

He and his three fellow crewman — two pilots and another crew chief — were on a mission to retrieve some soldiers from Kuwait and drop them off in Baghdad.

But moments after takeoff, the Osprey lost power, a Defense Department report said, and with a crash seemingly imminent, Spears and the other crew chief jumped out of the craft and into the Persian Gulf below.

Spears, who as a Memphis teenager was a YMCA lifeguard, could swim, but his life preserver failed to automatically inflate. Wearing flight clothes, boots and a helmet, he flailed in the water.

The pilot of the floundering Osprey, meanwhile, somehow gained control and was able to return the aircraft safely to the ship's deck.

Spears, still in the water, continued to struggle.

"The surviving crew chief watched Corporal Spears go under water on at least three occasions attempting to manually inflate his LPU," the Defense Department report said. "On the last attempt, the surviving crew chief did not see Corporal Spears return to the surface."

And so Spears became the first American killed in Operation Inherent Resolve, the name the Defense Department has given to U.S. military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

"It's a strange feeling to think Jordan could be in history," said Spears' mother, Cosette Spears. "But it doesn't change anything. He's still gone. Even if he'd saved 50 men ... I'd be glad for that. But he'd still be gone."

Cosette Spears is an energetic, outgoing person. She entertains at children's parties as Kuzin Kozy, a maker of balloon sculpture and teller of jokes. But today, Veterans Day, will prove somber.

"It might be hard for me to handle," she said. "I think I'll stay home and watch TV."

"It's tough timing," said Vicki Stoffregen, an Air Force veteran who was Jordan's guidance counselor at Silver Creek High School. She knew Jordan well and finds his death "so hard to take, the way it happened — an equipment failure. It just blows me away."

The incident is being investigated by the military.

Spears was 21. He had signed up for the Marines at age 17 and was three years into a five-year enlistment. He was adventurous, said his father, Greg Spears. The last time Jordan was home, in July, he went skydiving.

Despite a lengthy search, Spears' body was not recovered.

"I was thinking the other day about a father I read about whose son had been killed, and he was so mad at the president," said Greg, a land surveyor. "But I feel no anger. I feel only loss."

Silver Creek High School in Sellersburg, a 10 minute drive from Memphis, is fertile recruiting ground for the armed services. Every year a dozen or more of the school's some 200 graduates enlist in one of the branches, Stoffregen said.

At commencement it's the custom for Principal Mike Crabtree to ask the military-bound graduates to stand and be recognized. Always they get a standing ovation.

"These young people are putting their community ahead of themselves," Crabtree said, "and that's something special, and our community acknowledges it."

In the school's main hallway hangs a bulletin board with photographs of 69 recent graduates wearing their military finery, including Spears, Class of 2011. In his high-collared dress blues and high white hat, Spears looks stern. He looks like a warrior. He was the school's first military death since Vietnam.

A 2007 report from the Associated Press found that nearly half of all servicemen and women killed in the Iraq war came from communities with fewer than 25,000 people, and one out of every five troops killed came from hometowns of less than 5,000. Sellersburg's population is 6,000. Memphis' is 700.

Spears planned eventually to return to rural, hilly southern Indiana. He had a tattoo on one of his arms of a train, and on the side of the train was written: "Memphis."

His plan was to get a job as a chef. In high school Spears took culinary classes.

Greg recalled how in middle school his son hunted squirrels in some nearby woods and how one time he took the critters to school where he ate them, cooked but cold, to the amusement of his classmates.

Jordan was one of six children. He had a twin, Nathan, who a few days after Jordan's death shocked his parents by slipping away to a recording studio. He recorded a song in honor of his brother to the tune of John Michael Montgomery's "Letters from Home."

His parents had never heard Nathan sing before. "On the morning of Jordan's funeral he hands us the CD and said, 'I want this played,'" said his mother.

Nathan is usually easy going, but that morning he was adamant. "I'd never seen Nathan like that," Cosette said.

So they played the CD. Nathan sang with a mournful, tuneful voice, and the mourners at Garr Funeral Home melted.

For comfort, Cosette Spears replays that recording on a portable CD player. When she hears Nathan singing about Jordan, she quietly buries her head in her hands and tries to control her shoulders.

Her husband's coping strategy has been to re-read Jordan's text messages. He has practically memorized them. "9/5 was the last one, but it was short," Greg Spears said. "9/2 is the one I keep going back to."

"OK good to touch base," Jordan texted. "It's been a little over a month and I am getting sick of this boat ha ha. Its kinda like a constant fight between the navy to get anything done. But its not the worst thing in the world i've been to multiple countries already and seen some cool stuff. Anyway keep messaging me its more effective to use this than letters. But care packages are awesome. Snacks, candy, water flavorings and little things."

Spears died less than a month later.

Three weeks after his death, the second American soldier was killed in Operation Inherent Resolve. Marine Lance Cpl. Sean P. Neal, 19, of Riverside, Calif., died in Baghdad of injuries suffered in a non-combat related incident.

Contact Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.

Unusual circumstances of first deaths of previous wars

Daniel Hough was the first soldier to die in the Civil War. An artilleryman, Hough was one of the defenders of Fort Sumter when the Confederates bombarded it. The shelling caused no casualties. But afterward, as the Union soldiers surrendered, they fired a ceremonial 100-gun salute. One of the guns malfunctioned, exploded and killed Hough.

Scott Speicher was the first soldier to die in the 1991 Gulf War. Speicher, a pilot, was shot down over Iraq the first night of the war. But his fate would remain a mystery for almost two decades. The Defense Department first listed Speicher as Missing in Action. Later Speicher was listed as Killed in Action/Body Not Recovered. Later his status was changed back to MIA, then to Missing/Captured, then back to MIA. Finally, 18 years after Speicher went missing, in 2009, U.S. marines fighting in Iraq found his remains.

— Star research