An Iowa soldier overcome by the heat in Iraq has died, less than a day after Private First Class David Kirchoff of Anamosa had been taken to a German hospital. The National Guard says Kirchoff suffered heatstroke. He lapsed into a coma enroute and was kept on life support while the Guard got his wife, her father and brother over there, so when he died they were there. Private Kirchoff collapsed with heatstroke on Saturday, and authorities who realized how serious his condition was managed to get family members to Germany before he died. Colonel Robert King says Kirchoff was serving with a transportation unit out of Cedar Rapids. He was a truck driver assigned to Detachment One, 2168th Transportation Company out of Cedar Rapids, deployed in February to join a Muscatine company that’s been in Iran supporting the Army’s fourth infantry division. Kirchoff graduated from Cedar Rapids’ Metro High School in 1992, enlisted ten years later in the Army National Guard, and completed basic truck-driving school in January. Kirchoff worked at a trucking company in his civilian life., and he and his wife have sons ten and 12 years old. Funeral arrangements are pending as his wife returns from Germany, and the guard’s assigned a casualty assistance officer to help with arrangements.
