Army Capt. Nathan S. Dalley

Died November 17, 2003 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

27, of Kaysville, Utah; assigned to the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany; died Nov. 17 from a non-hostile gunshot wound in Baghdad.

Utah soldier dies of gunshot in Iraq

Associated Press

KAYSVILLE, Utah — Family members of a Utah solider killed in Iraq still have no idea how he died other than by a “non-hostile gunshot wound.”

The Department of Defense has not released additional information about the Nov. 17 death of Capt. Nathan S. Dalley, 27, in Baghdad.

His body was returned to Delaware on Nov. 19. It was not immediately known when Dalley’s remains will be returned to Utah.

His sister, Alicia Schroeder of Kaysville, said they want to know “if he suffered, if he died quickly, we just want to know.”

She described her younger brother, the 1994 senior class president at Brighton High School in Sandy, as a man “who wanted to explore everything and see everything.”

That’s why, after graduating from West Point in 1998, he backpacked through Europe and took part in the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, Schroeder said.

“He was full of life,” she said.

Dalley was deployed to Iraq with the Army’s 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, from Baumholder, Germany, last August, an assignment he chose, his sister said.

“From the time of Sept. 11 he wanted to fight for his country,” Schroeder said. “All the soldiers he knew felt so pumped to defend our country. And he wasn’t afraid to fight, he wasn’t afraid to go to war. He had been trained excellently to do this job.”

Dalley was an honor student at Brighton High in Sandy, Utah. He graduated in 1994 and received appointments to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marines Academy, said his sister Alicia Schroeder of Kaysville.

He graduated West Point in 1998.

Dalley originally wanted to become a naval officer so he could fly fighters but discovered that his eyesight was too poor. He then chose the Army and hoped to become a ranger with the Special Forces but was deployed to Iraq before he could finish the training, Schroeder said.

Dalley is the third Utah solider to die in Iraq. James W. Cawley, 41, a Salt Lake police officer and Marine reservist, was killed in a firefight near Nasiriyah in late March, nine days into the war. Staff Sgt. Nino D. Livaudais, 23, died in April in a suicide bombing at a U.S. checkpoint in northwestern Iraq.

Dalley was engaged to Kristen Barnekov of Columbus, Ga.