DOD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Capt. Bruce A. MacFarlane, 46, of Oviedo, Florida, died July 6, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
MacFarlane was assigned to the 1186th Transportation Company, 831st Transportation Battalion, Jacksonville, Fla.
For more information related to this release, contact the U.S. Army Reserve Command Media Relations officer at 910-570-8329 or 910-495-5442.
Oviedo soldier dies in AfghanistanBy Leslie Postal and David Breen, Orlando Sentinel
7:48 p.m. EST, July 8, 2012A U.S. Army captain from Oviedo died in Afghanistan on Friday about three months after his Army Reserve unit was mobilized.
Bruce A. MacFarlane, 46, died in Kandahar, according to the Department of Defense, which did not provide information on how he died.
He was assigned to the 1186th Transportation Company, 831st Transportation Battalion, which is based in Jacksonville.
"He was a great guy, good family guy," said Keith Marang, who lives next door and said he met MacFarlane when both families moved into their new homes in 2008. "I was just floored when I heard the news."
He said MacFarlane, befitting his military career, was clean-cut and fit and looked younger than his age. He and his wife have two children, a son and a daughter, Marang said, adding that he thought they were in their early teens. He said the family moved to Oviedo from DeLand.
A person who answered the door at the family's large, modern home Sunday afternoon said they were not available, and she was not authorized to release any information. She said she was a friend of the family.
Until his recent deployment, MacFarlane ran a pool business, and he spent last summer installing his own family's backyard pool, working hour after hour in the heat to complete it with "remarkable" attention to detail, Marang said.
Once finished, "it was absolutely gorgeous," he said, with travertine tile, a hot tub at one end and a fire pit at the other, and three flower beds with stacked stone behind it. MacFarlane had said he hoped that this summer the pool would be a place where his children and their friends would hang out.
MacFarlane, who spent 12 years on active duty, was very patriotic, with an American flag always flying from his home, his neighbor said. Several small flags and red, white and blue pinwheels decorated the flower pots at the front door Sunday, presumably from the Fourth of July holiday last week.
MacFarlane enlisted in the Army in 1988, and was commissioned as an officer in 1991 after going through an ROTC program, according to Maj. Annmarie Daneker, media relations officer for the U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.
The Tennessee native was promoted to captain in 1996 and then released from active duty in 2000. Daneker said the records she had did not provide details about his relationship with the Army between the end of his active duty time and his deployment this year.
MacFarlane was mobilized for deployment to Afghanistan as a member of the Army Reserve in early April, she said.
As of Friday, there had been 2,020 U.S. military deaths — 1,593 in combat — in Afghanistan as part of "Operation Enduring Freedom," the defense department said.
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