Copter Pilot Had Survived War in Iraq

When Mark W. Evans Jr. was in Iraq, he would call or send text messages to his wife every day from the war zone. On Christmas morning, he called to hear his children open presents. On New Year’s Eve, he called his wife late and asked her to stay on the phone to ring in 2004 with him.

When Evans returned to Texas in March, his family thought he was finally out of danger.

“I started to sleep again,” his wife, Colleen, 28, said Tuesday. “Now I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to sleep again.”

Evans, a chief warrant officer and father of two, was one of seven soldiers killed Monday when their helicopter crashed in a field 30 miles northeast of Ft. Hood.

Evans and the other pilot, Chief Warrant Officer David H. Gardner Jr., 32, were flying the Ft. Hood-based group when their Black Hawk struck support cables for a television transmission tower in foggy morning weather. Lights on the tower had apparently stopped working last week when storms came to the area.

Also killed were Brig. Gen. Charles B. Allen, 49; Col. James M. Moore, 47; Capt. Todd T. Christmas, 26; Chief Warrant Officer Douglas V. Clapp, 48; and Spc. Richard L. Brown, 29.

“We lost some of the most talented, experienced and dedicated soldiers in the United States Army on that aircraft,” said Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, 4th Infantry Division commander.

Evans died a week before his 28th birthday and 11 days before his seventh wedding anniversary. He and his wife met in the mid-1990s, when he went home one weekend with his roommate, Colleen’s brother. It was love at first sight, and the couple became inseparable.

“I can’t ever love anyone that deeply, and no one can ever love me that deeply,” she said through tears. “I don’t know why God would take someone so wonderful away from someone who needs him so much.”