For a better future, study the past.
For a better future, study the past.
Thank you for taking time to read my post in memory of Sergeant Adam Quinn of Volusia County, Florida.
After a serious storm that tore through DeLand recently, I stopped to check on the headstone for my grandparents at Oakdale Cemetery. It was on this visit I noticed the headstone for a young man by the name of Adam Quinn. Quinn served as a Corporal in the United States army and was posthumously promoted to Sergeant. He was only 22 when he died so I thought he could easily have been a casualty of war.
Adam Quinn was born June 7, 1985 and was raised in Volusia County, FL. He and his family were active members in the First United Methodist Church of DeLand. In high school Quinn was a member of the Junior ROTC where his instructor, Gary Cornwell, described him as “…a good kid, always trying to do his best. He served in several different leadership roles, and he did well in all of them.”
Joining the army after graduating in 2003, Quinn completed basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Quinn served as an automation specialist, assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, NC. Corporal Quinn was killed when a car bomb detonated near a vehicle he was travelling in near Kabul, Afghanistan on October 6, 2007.
Captain Eric Von Fischer-Benzon, his company commander, said of Quinn after his death, “Quinn was extremely popular and respected by his peers and superiors alike. To him, nothing was a bother, and helping out a fellow soldier or civilian was a genuine pleasure for him.”
Quinn’s numerous awards and decorations included the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the NATO Medal, the Combat Action Badge, and the Parachutist’s Badge.
In October 2014, the DeLand American Legion Post 6 was rededicated and named American Legion Adam Quinn Post 6. Volusia County, Florida proclaimed October 5, 2014 to be Sgt. Adam Quinn Day in honor of this re-dedication.
Located at the DeLand Memorial Hospital and Veterans Museum is a beautiful memorial honoring soldiers from West Volusia County who gave their lives in the Middle East during the years 1990-2014. Please see my post at THIS LINK. On that page I will be including links to posts for all the soldiers honored on this memorial. Corporal Adam Quinn is included in this listing.
If you are interested in killed in action military burials in Oakdale Cemetery, be sure to take a look at my post about William Lee Owen Brown, who perished in Vietnam.
Daytona Beach News Journal
Orlando Sentinel
2 thoughts on “In Memory Sergeant Adam Quinn”
Very nice memoriam Sir, thank you.
I was Master Sergeant Ness in those days of long ago, SGT Quinn worked for me in the Joint Operations Center at Bagram Airbase. He was a fine young man. The JOC is where we tracked the battlespace for our area of responsibility, RC East and all American troops in the country.
He was one of the IT kids (I was a Master Sergeant, they were all kids), utterly reliable and earning more responsibility quickly. We arrived in Afghanistan in January of 07, by July or August most of our personell had rotated through their two weeks of mid-tour leave. SGT Quinn had taken his and a few weeks later informed us that his wife was pregnant. He was a very proud young man and rightly so.
We had a small detachment of personell working at ISAF HQ in Kabul. They were liasons to our higher (NATO) HQ. When one of their people took mid-tour leave we had to backfill a person from the JOC while he was gone. SGT Quinn had already done it once as had the rest of his section. They all loved it! Working in the JOC meant we never left Bagram, the troops in Kabul often drove in convoys transporting VIPs and supplies to the various posts in and around the Afghan capital. This let SGT Quinn and his peers get off the FOB and actually feel like soldiers executing missions. Escorting convoys, security, things done with a weapon in your hands and the intent to do harm to your enemies, like soldiers, not like the IT guy fixing some Colonels computer. The last person to take leave from Kabul meant one of my men had to go a second time. They all volunteered but I’ve already mentioned SGT Quinn’s stellar performance. I gave him the duty to go. Everything was going his way, recently returned from leave, the news about his baby, his career progressing and now the mission he wanted, everything was coming up rose’s.
A few days later he was driving an armored SUV as part of a convoy across Kabul when a suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device, an SVBIED, accelerated out of a side street and t-boned SGT Quinn’s SUV. The impact forced the door partially open allowing the force of the blast into the vehicle, killing him instantly. We were informed of the svbied attack on the convoy but before anything else was known we saw his body on the aljazeera news we kept playing in the JOC. Now we dealt with the disbelief, loss and helplessness that accompanies the death of a brother in arms.
The JOC Sergeant Major and one of our Chaplains accompanied his remains home. They met his wife and parents and rode in the funeral procession. They said the whole town was out, standing on the sidewalks, every building flying flags. He was laid to rest like a returning Centurion parading to the Roman senate. The 82nd Airborne Division wasn’t new to these losses, thanks to generous donors in Fayetteville NC and in the Division’s history we were able to guarantee his child a scholarship to the college of their choice, meager solace at the time. That was 18 years ago, his child should be getting ready to use that scholarship purchased at such an exorbitant price. I hope that child knows, his father was a bright, shining example of America’s blood and treasure. A fine man and a fine Soldier.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and history. This adds so much to SGT Quinn’s important story that wasn’t covered in local papers. I hope others read this and if local, visit his grave site. Respectfully.