686 - updated with photo

05/21/09 :
DoD Identifies Air Force Casualty

1st Lt. Roslyn L. Schulte, 25, of St. Louis, Mo., died May 20 near Kabul, Afghanistan of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. She was assigned to the Headquarters, Pacific Air Forces Command, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii

Ladies of Liberty, a special Soldier’s Angels chapter that supports deployed female members of the military, posted this remembrance of 1st Lt. Schulte on their blog:

Yesterday, my closest friend for the last couple months, Roslyn Schulte, was killed in a roadside bombing halfway between here and Bagram. She is one of the most incredible people I have ever known, and I want to tell you about her. I had only known her about three months, but she was assigned to my unit, and so, she and I being the only two junior officers in the group, she had the unfortunate pleasure of having to hangout with me. I can probably count on one hand the number of times we did not eat at least one meal of the day together since she arrived here in early March.

Ros was truly an exceptional person. Usually when you hear that about someone who just died, it's almost always exaggeration, if not pure BS. With Ros, it's not. She passed up on the Ivy leagues to go to the Air Force Academy. She qualified for state in five different sports in high school, was an all-American in college, a qualified pilot. She was ALWAYS kind to others. She went out of her way to call her mom and dad two or three times a week every week she was here. Sorry I don't do that, Mom and Dad. No one did, except for Ros. She dreamed of getting out of the air force to settle down and start a family. She didn't drink. She didn't like the lifestyle of the military -- said it didn't work well for family. She wanted to be a successful business owner (like her mom), but worried that would interfere with raising a family.

(snip)

Ros and I usually travelled together on longer trips. We were almost always paired off together, in the same vehicle. That's how we wanted it, and how the mission planners did. Yesterday however I had to go somewhere else. We saw eachother briefly in the morning, just shy of
7am. She was walking from her room, my convoy was already staged and waiting. She saluted me, in typical jest. Junior officers usually don't salute other junior officers, especially when they know eachother. Without too much said, we each went our seperate ways -- I fully expected we would both be back having a meal together at Camp Eggers that evening. In fact, even though the day had just begun, I was already looking forward to that. She was my friend. My helicopter took off at 8am. By all accounts, Ros was killed halfway between Kabul and Bagram about 8:05.

(snip)

I'm writing this to you so you can know a little bit about this wonderful person, Ros Schulte. My friend.

Photo and remembrance via IGTNT