Army Spc. Zachary R. Clouser

Died July 18, 2007 serving during Operation Iraqi Freedom

19, of Dover, Pa.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany; died July 18 in Adhamiyah, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his vehicle was attacked by enemy forces using an improvised explosive device and small-arms fire. Also killed were Sgt. 1st Class Luis E. Gutierrez-Rosales, Spc. Richard Gilmore III and Spc. Daniel E. Gomez.

Pa. soldier, 19, killed in Iraq

The Associated Press

DOVER, Pa. — A 19-year-old Pennsylvania soldier was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb, according to his mother.

Pfc. Zachary Clouser, of Dover Township, who died July 18, had been Iraq for nearly a year and would have turned 20 in a couple of weeks.

“Zachary was the biggest prankster, jokester, anything he could do to get anybody to smile,” his mother, Deb Etheridge, told WPMT-TV in Harrisburg on Friday.

Clouser joined the Army soon after graduating from Dover Area High School in 2005. He came back to visit the school while on leave in the spring, principal Joel Riedel said.

“This is a very, very sad thing. We were stunned yesterday when we got the call from the Army recruiter,” Riedel said.

Clouser had six siblings and loved to hunt and fish. Etheridge told WPMT that her son planned to learn more about computers or criminology after his enlistment ended in 2009.