Posted on: Sunday, October 3, 2004

Wai'anae man dies in action in Iraq

Advertiser Staff & News Services

SOMERSET, Ky. — A soldier killed in Iraq this week was a footloose free spirit from a difficult background, moving from Hawai'i to Kentucky seemingly on a whim.

Pfc. Joshua K. "Buzz" Titcomb, 20, grew up in Wai'anae. He had met a woman who was also in the military; she found out recently she was pregnant and the excited couple had planned to marry, friends said.

"He was just getting his life on track. That's what's so sad," said Karen Ashley of Stevenson, Wash., whose son Jared Johnson was a friend of Titcomb's.

Titcomb was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 72nd Armor Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division, headquartered at Camp Casey in South Korea.

A crewman on a tank, he died Wednesday in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, of wounds he sustained the day before when an improvised explosive device exploded near his vehicle, according to the Army.

No further information on the attack nor on funeral arrangements was available, said Army spokeswoman Maj. Elizabeth Robbins.

Titcomb was staying with a friend in Somerset, Ky., when he joined the Army in August 2003.

Titcomb attended Wai'anae High School, and graduated in 2001, according to the state Department of Education.

However, Wai'anae High principal Joanne Kumasaka, contacted at home, said yesterday she was not familiar with the young man's name and couldn't verify that he was a Wai'anae graduate without checking her school records.

Titcomb's photo was not included in the 2001 Wai'anae High School yearbook, and one 2001 Wai'anae graduate, Dani Payumo, said he wasn't sure whether the soldier had been a classmate.

"It doesn't ring a bell," said Payumo. "We had a big class, but most likely I know all the guys who graduated my year."

Faith Robino, 46, of Nanakuli, said Titcomb was the son of her first cousin, Tennison Titcomb, who was last known to her to be incarcerated on the Big Island.

Robino said she hadn't seen Joshua Titcomb since he attended Leihoku Elementary School in 1989.

"He was very rascal," she said. "The teacher had a very hard time controlling him."

Robino said she believes Joshua Titcomb had had a difficult childhood. His father remarried and the boy was raised by his stepmother. She said the boy had a brother and two half-siblings.

"I'm not sure if he graduated by Wai'anae High in 2001, but I know they were still living in that area," she said.

Titcomb's friend in Somerset, cosmetologist Tyler Blackburn, said Titcomb had lived with her or with friends in Washington in 2004. When he decided to enter the Army, he wanted to do it from Kentucky because he loved the state, Blackburn said.

Titcomb moved to Lexington in 2001 after meeting a couple from the city vacationing in Honolulu. That couple was Lindsey Newsom and her boyfriend, Jared Johnson. Newsom said the couple had asked Titcomb for directions and he and Johnson "just hit it off instantly."

Friends said Titcomb was a fun-loving, outgoing youth who wasn't shy about introducing himself to a table full of girls at a restaurant. He loved to play video games and talk on the phone.

"We all loved him," Blackburn said of herself and her family. "He was just a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of person."

Blackburn said Titcomb decided to join the Army at 19 because he wanted the discipline that military service would offer and wanted to change his life, get an education, have a family and buy a car.

Titcomb went through training at Fort Knox. He was stationed in South Korea, but had been in Iraq since August, Blackburn said.

He had called friends from there a number of times. Blackburn said he told them he couldn't give details of his missions, but each said he was worried in their most recent talks with him.

Staff writer Will Hoover and The Associated Press contributed to this report.