Our Latest American Hero #122

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Originally uploaded by Randuwa

Army Spc. Ronald A. Schmidt, 18, of Newton, Kan.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 161st Field Artillery, Kansas Army National Guard, Kingman, Kan.; died Aug. 3 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained Aug. 2 in a vehicle accident in Ashraf, Iraq.

“Newton Soldier Killed In Iraq”

A strong-willed, spontaneous car enthusiast with a heart of gold. That's how Specialist Ronald Schmidt's family and friends in Newton say they'll remember the 18 year old. Schmidt died over the weekend when his vehicle overturned in Iraq.

"Ronnie was not afraid of anything or anybody," Stacey Dennett said. Fearlessness drove Ronnie, as his friends called him, to enlist in the Kansas National Guard. He didn't go alone.

Daniel Dennett trained and bunked with Ronnie and the two got into plenty of trouble together. They were practically family.

"We thought of him as a grandson, as another one of our grandsons," Sherry Neuhring, Dennett's grandmother said. Ronnie had lived with Neuhring and her husband Larry, the past two and a half years.

Neuhring says she had just spoken with Ronnie Wednesday. "He was already telling me about the food he wanted me to fix him when he got here. That's why it was such a shock to see the lieutenant captain and chaplain at the door."

Ronnie died in Iraq Saturday when his humvee overturned. Daniel's mom, Stacey, says her son was with him.

"They loved each other like brothers. They got to say goodbye to each other," she said.

Sherry says, "He came off with this real tough persona, underneath he would have given you the shirt off your back."

They're traits he carried through the halls of Newton High and onto the wrestling mat. "He was not a person you could easily ignore. He had a number of friends. Busy social life. I don't know when he had time to sleep," Newton High Assistant Principal Roger Erickson said.

Erickson says Ronnie had a good, strong work ethic. He put in 40 hours a week at the McDonald's in Newton his junior and senior years.

Ronnie enlisted in the Kansas National Guard shortly after he graduated January 2007. "They were all supposed to come back. We were having a coming home party. Not like this," Stacey said.

His extended family now waits to hear the plans to say goodbye.