Thomas Lowell Tucker

Thomas Lowell Tucker

The June 2006 abduction of U.S. soldiers in Iraq occurred when Iraqi insurgents attacked a military checkpoint near Yusufiyah, Iraq, twelve miles south of Baghdad, within the Triangle of Death. On June 16, 2006, insurgents killed SPC David J. Babineau and captured PFC Kristian Menchaca and PFC Thomas L. Tucker. An unsuccessful search operation was conducted by 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops in an attempt to recover the missing soldier. On 19 June, a few miles from where they were initially captured, the bodies of Menchaca and Tucker were found, booby trapped with an improvised explosive device, and according to a senior Iraqi military official, the soldiers' bodies showed clear signs of having been tortured significantly before eventually being executed. The soldiers were members of 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.