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Last updated on Wednesday, September 14, 2011
(UNDATED) - Brett Wood’s body will be flown to Monroe County Airport this week. Wood was killed Friday in Afghanistan, when an improvised explosive device, or IED, detonated.
His 21-year-old brother, Nikk Wood, escorted the body back to the United States, early Monday morning . Wood and his older brother Nikk enlisted in the Army together after Brett graduated from Owen Valley High School in 2010.
His mother, Malissa Frye, of Spencer, and his father, Mitch Wood, of Michigan, flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be there when their sons arrived.
Brett Wood shipped out to Afghanistan on April 22, a day before his 19th birthday.
Wood was well trained, a member of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division's 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT). He completed basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., and was stationed at Fort Wainright in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the soldiers are called Arctic Wolves. Before deploying to Afghanistan, Wood received specialized training at the Army's National Training Center in California.
The focus was on RSOI, military jargon for Reception, Staging, Onward movement and Integration. The training was in conjunction with the brigade's Strykers, armed tank-like vehicles that transport troops in war zones.
Stryker vehicles are equipped with a new device that detects and jams radio frequencies used to detonate roadside bombs, like the one that killed Wood. Such technology is being developed in a classified facility at the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center.
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