Nathan Bruckenthal, killed in action in Iraq

The bombings and bloodshed in Iraq wrenched hearts in Ridgefield this week. U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Nathan Bruckenthal, a former Ridgefield volunteer fireman remembered by friends and schoolmates, was killed protecting an oil terminal off the Iraqi coast.
“My entire class, pretty much, was friends with him,” said Christopher Gust of Ridgefield High School’s Class of 1997.
“He was really a good person,” said Mike Gabbianelli, who served with him in the volunteer fire department. “He always tried to help anyone out that he could, no matter what. He’d give any one of us the shirt off his back, no matter what. I never thought this would happen.”
“Very, very sad. I’m still very much in shock right now,” said Brad Blosat, who lived a few doors away on Grandview Drive. He recalled sledding on winter snow days on the neighborhood’s steep hills.
“We’d sled from the time we knew school was going to be canceled,” he said. “We’d shovel each other’s driveways and then we’d sled all day until the sun went down.”
“We went to the junior prom together,” said Wendy Ostendorf.  “He was just such a wonderful guy. He had a wonderful laugh and was such a good soul, and we’re all sad.”
Petty Officer Third Class Bruckenthal died from wounds suffered Saturday, April 24, 2004,  in an apparent suicide attack on an oil terminal in the Persian Gulf. He was the first U.S. Coast Guardsman to die in battle since the Vietnam War. Two U.S. Navy sailors were also killed in the incident, and four other servicemen were wounded.
Three dhows, small boats often used in the Gulf, pulled near the Al-Basra and Khawr al-Amaya oil terminals, in waters some 100 miles off Iraq's port of Umm Qasr. When approached by teams sent to intercept them, the dhows exploded. The dhow near Khawr al-Amaya flipped over a U.S. Navy interception craft, killing Petty Officer Bruckenthal.
Nathan Bruckenthal “was killed by terrorists Saturday while bravely serving his country in Iraq,” Vice Adm. James D. Hull, the Coast Guard Atlantic Area Commander, said in a statement. “I sincerely hope that his family and friends can find a little comfort knowing that he died a hero.”
Petty Officer Bruckenthal is among 711 American military personnel counted as having died since the Iraq war began. Of the dead, 530 were killed in action.
He was on his second deployment in Iraq with the Cost Guard. He was a damage control petty officer, serving in Coalition Maritime Interception Operations.
The attack he died in damaged the electrical generators at the Al-Basra Oil Terminal, halting production. The Al-Basra terminal pumps some 700,000 barrels per day of Iraq’s total exports of 1.6 million barrels a day.
Nathan Bruckenthal lived on Grandview Drive with his mother, sister and step-father from 1992 to 1995. Friends recalled that he moved to Ridgefield at the start of seventh grade, and left after his sophomore year of high school when his family moved to Virginia. While at Ridgefield High School he played football, and helped start the boys volleyball team. He graduated from high school in Virginia, participating in high school ROTC there.
After graduation he came back to Ridgefield and lived for a time with his friend Christopher Gust’s family on Rustic Road.
“He kind of moved in for a while, after his senior year,” said JoAnn Gust, Chris’s mother, who now lives in Redding. “He liked it better up here than in Virginia — all his friends were up here.”
“He was just a really good kid, really sweet,” she said. “He’d come in and give you a big bear hug and a kiss. He and Christopher and even my older son, they were like brothers for a while.”
Christopher Gust honored his friend’s memory in a tribute that appears on page 5A of this paper.
“The two of us were more like family. I would even call us brothers,” Mr. Gust wrote. “...I have always envied and looked up to Nathan. He was so courageous and strong. People loved him, listened to him, and followed him.”
“He absolutely had a smile on his face all the time,” said Mr. Blosat. “He was very, very nice to everybody who knew him and everybody who didn’t know him. He was just outgoing, he tried to make friends with everybody — just a great, great guy...
“We played football together, during his high school years, and he and I were actually two of the original people that went to Chip Salvestrini when he was AD over at the high school, and told him we wanted to play volleyball. We were two of the original guys who started that program and we played together for two years.”
“I was ’96, I was a year ahead of him,” said Robert Graziano. “I guess we really started hanging out when he got to high school. What I recall, he’d do anything for anybody.”
Mr. Graziano is a petty officer in the Coast Guard, stationed at Barnegat Light, N.J. His decision to join the Guard was influenced by Mr. Bruckenthal.
“My son joined the Coast Guard following in Nate’s footsteps,” said Stephen Graziano, Rob’s father. “Both came out of high school, tried college and it didn’t really work for them. They both kind of found a home in the Coast Guard.”
“We had talked a lot about it,” Rob Graziano said. “I got a lot of information from him, and pretty much made up my mind, after talking to him, that that’s what I wanted to do.”
It was with Christopher Gust, Rob Graziano and Mike Gabbianelli that Nate Bruckenthal served in the Ridgefield Volunteer Fire Department.
“He was there with Chris and Rob and my son Mike,” said Volunteer Fire Chief Ed Gabbianelli. “He was over my house all the time. He was good kid, and it’s really sad to lose somebody like that. He was part of the family.
Petty Officer Bruckenthal’s death leaves a family that includes his wife, Pattie of Dania Beach, Fla., who is expecting their first child; his mother, Laurie Bullock, and his sister NoaBeth Bruckenthal, both of Ashburn, Va.; his father, Eric Bruckenthal of Northport, Long Island; stepmother Patricia Bruckenthal and brothers, Matthew and Michael, also of Northport; his grandparents, Rudy and Elaine Bruckenthal of Queens, N.Y.; and a number of uncles, aunts and cousins.
“Nathan Bruckenthal died in the service of his country,” a statement issued by his father said. “He died fulfilling his mission and in anyone’s terms he is a hero. He had always been a hero to our family.”
His father said there are plans to set up charitable funds to benefit Petty Officer Bruckenthal’s wife and yet-to-be-born child.
Friends in Ridgefield had not yet met his wife, but Mike Gabbianelli recalled receiving a letter that told about her.
“None of us have met his wife. We’ve heard a lot about her. I’ve seen pictures of her and everything. I’m sure she’s a nice person,” he said.
“He wrote me a letter in February 2002. I reread that the other night, it was Chris, Rob and I, saying that he was doing good, he was out in Washington at the time, where he was stationed with the Coast Guard. He just said he met somebody and they were getting married, and said, ‘Yeah, you guys are probably carrying on right now, saying another one bites the dust.’ He was supposed to be coming up with his wife this summer, so we could all meet her.”
“It’s really sad that he’s not going to be able to see his child,” said Volunteer Chief Gabbianelli. “It’s really a shame. My sympathies go out to his family. He was just a great kid.”
Friends said Nathan Bruckenthal, whose father is the police chief of Northport, Long Island, was proud and happy to be serving his country.
“I knew when we were growing up together, that was his dream: He wanted to be in the Coast Guard, a firefighter or a police officer,” said Mr. Blosat. “That was his dream, to do exactly what he was doing.”
“I know he was happy he finally found something he wanted to do,” said Mike Gabbianelli. “I know he always wanted to be either a cop or a firefighter. I remember him saying that.”
Mr. Graziano, who had followed Mr. Bruckenthal’s lead in joining the Coast Guard, is the Ridgefield friend who had seen him most recently, shortly before his second deployment to Iraq.
“I kept in touch with him until recently. I just saw him a couple of weeks before he left, in February,” he said. “It was the last time I saw him. He came down, I’m stationed in Long Beach Island, with the Coast Guard, he came down to sit, eat lunch — we talked, and reminisced.”
Mr. Blosat recalled Mr. Bruckenthal as a kid who thrived on competition, whether playing computer games, pick-up basketball, or organized team sports.
“He was just an overall great kid, and he could not be put down,” he said. “If there was a challenge, Nate would definitely rise to the occasion. He was just a great kid. When he was on a team with me, he made us feel like a team.”
Mr. Blosat recalled an incident when the two played on the high school football team that he felt was emblematic of Mr. Bruckenthal’s determination and character.
It was a defensive drill, where players practice breaking through two offensive linemen to tackle a running back.
“Nate, it was his time to do it, and Nate got down in his three-point stance, and didn’t do what the coach wanted him to do. The coach pulled him out and yelled at Nate,” Mr. Blosat said. “Nate got right back in line, pushed the kid who was next in line away. He said ‘It’s my turn to go, I’m going to do this.’ He got down and did the drill, and blew everyone away — did it perfectly. He never gave up.”