Army Capt. Benedict "Ben" Smith died November 7, 2003 serving during Operation Iraqi Freedom, but there is so much more to know about him than just his ultimate sacrifice.
Ben was from a very small town in northeast Missouri. Monroe City is the kind of town that feels plucked from a Normal Rockwell painting with its American flags lining the streets and its small town charm. With his close family and his small town roots, Ben had a trip planned to return home for a visit when his life was tragically cut short.
Ben was the kind of person that everyone enjoyed spending time with. He was kind, thoughtful, and very proud to be serving in the U.S. Army. He even once told his mother that he knew the military could cost him his life — but that he would be at peace dying in a helicopter.
Sadly, that was precisely Ben's fate on November 7, 2003 when his UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter went down in Tikrit, Iraq. Smith was assigned to 101st Aviation Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) in Fort Campbell, Ky.
“Ben has always been one to go for a challenge,” Mary Sims said of her brother, Army Capt. Benedict J. Smith. "He was very proud of his service.”
“We’ve always been worried about him being over there, but he didn’t want us to worry about that stuff,” Sims said.
Moments before his takeoff, Smith, 29, said in an e-mail to his family back home that “I’m flying around some big general today. That will be good for me to get out of the office for a day.”
Smith died later Friday when the Black Hawk helicopter assigned to the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division went down in a crash.
Smith’s parents got the grim news later that day when an Army officer drove to their farm near this northeast Missouri community.
“We had all heard on the news about a Black Hawk going down that morning and wondered if he could be him,” Sims said. “As soon as dad saw the officer’s uniform, he knew what it meant.”
Smith was a member of the 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Brigade, Fort Campbell officials said.
Smith joined the Army after graduating in 1993 from Monroe City High School, where he participated in track and was a second-team all-conference basketball player his senior year, Sims said.
Smith graduated from West Point in 1999 as a second lieutenant, then attended flight school at Fort Rucker, Ala., where he learned to fly the Black Hawk. Smith then was assigned to the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell and was sent to Iraq in March.
Smith married his wife, Maggie, who also is a Black Hawk pilot on duty in Iraq. The couple had no children.
“His faith was important to him; that has helped him during his time over there.” Sims described her late brother as funny, loving and courageous.