Veterans Day was a funeral day for one Iowan killed recently in Iraq. U.S. Army Master Sergeant Cyle Gertz was in West Union for Tuesday’s last rites for Bruce Smith, one of the two Iowa National Guardsmen killed last week when their helicopter was shot down in Iraq.Gertz says we think of celebrating veterans who’ve fallen before us, but having to bury on on Veterans Day is “pretty bad.” The 41-year-old Smith was a pilot of the Chinook Helicopter shot down outside Bagdad a week and-a-half ago. Tony Devans, a family friend, was at Tuesday’s funeral. He says he knew it the day it happened, saw on the internet that a Chinook had been downed, and now feels that “It’ll never happen to me” attitude is just “wrong.” Survivors of the attack had been taken to the German hospital where Smith died. Another crewmember, 39-year-old Sergeant Paul Fisher of Marion, also died unexpectedly Thursday.
