Valley Isle family grieves for soldier

Associated Press

Family members of an Army reservist raised on Maui mourned yesterday after learning the soldier was among 17 men killed in a weekend helicopter crash in Iraq.

The Department of Defense confirmed Sgt. 1st Class Kelly Bolor, 37, a Lahaina native who lived in Whittier, Calif., died when two Black Hawk helicopters collided Saturday.

Bolor — who is married with a 3-year-old son, Kyle — was called to active duty in January and deployed to Iraq in February, family members said. His family had been planning a reunion, expecting him to return home later this month.

Instead, they began planning his funeral.

"He was supposed to be returning to Maui," said Bolor's twin brother, Maxie, one of five siblings. "We were planning for him to come home."

Maxie Bolor said his brother was a supply sergeant with the 101st Airborne Division.

"He was really grateful to be able to fight for his country," Maxie told The Maui News. "He felt it was the right thing to do."

The fallen soldier's sister-in-law, Alena Bolor, said he "was the kind of person who the first time you met him you felt like you knew him all his life."

"He was the friendliest person you could meet," she said.

The helicopter collision that took Bolor's life remains under investigation, though witnesses said one of the helicopters was hit by ground fire or a missile before it crashed into the other helicopter.

The two Black Hawks went down in residential neighborhoods of Mosul, the third-largest city in Iraq.

Bolor's family has tentatively scheduled a memorial service for Nov. 28 at Maria Lanakila Church in Lahaina. Meanwhile, Conrad Bolor, a brother of the soldier, says his family remains in shock.

"They just don't want to believe it yet," he said.

The two Black Hawk helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division destroyed in Mosul bring the total of helicopters downed in hostile action in the past two weeks to four, with 39 service members killed and 25 wounded.

Saturday's crashes also confirm an ominous new focus in attacks by insurgent forces in Iraq: From May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major combat operations, to Oct.25, there were eight helicopter-related deaths, all the result of accidents rather than hostile fire.

Then, on Oct. 25, anti-U.S. forces used a rocket-propelled grenade to bring down a Black Hawk in Tikrit.

The RPG hit one of the helicopter's engines, forcing it to make an emergency landing in a field. The five crew members came under intense small-arms fire but managed to escape before the Black Hawk was engulfed in flames.

On Nov. 2, guerrillas shot down a U.S. Chinook helicopter carrying dozens of soldiers near the city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, killing 16 soldiers and injuring 20 others.

Five days later, another U.S. Army Black Hawk was shot down near the insurgent stronghold of Tikrit, killing all six soldiers on board.