Service:  ARMY
Component:  NATIONAL GUARD
Name:  LHOTKA, JESSE MARVIN
Rank:  SGT
Pay Grade:  E05
Date of Death:  2005/02/21
Age:  24
Gender:  MALE
Home of Record City:  ALEXANDRIA
Home of Record State:  MN
Home of Record Country:  US
Unit:  C BATTERY, 1ST BATTALION, 151ST FIELD ARTILLERY, 34TH INFANTRY DIVISION, MORRIS, MN
Incident Geographic Code:  IZ
Casualty Geographic Code:  IZ
Casualty Country:  IRAQ
City of Loss:  BAGHDAD

Burial Location:
Greenwood Cemetery
Sauk Centre, MN 56378

Army Sergeant Jesse M. Lhotka was a member of the Minnesota National Guard. In 2004, he was assigned to Battery C, 151st Field Artillery Battalion and deployed to Iraq as a team leader. On February 21, 2005, while helping injured soldiers near Baghdad, Iraq, an improvised explosive device detonated, killing Lhotka and two others from his unit.

Sergeant Lhotka was credited with saving the life of a fellow solider from nearby Benson whose Humvee had flipped, and had just helped evacuate another soldier, when he was killed along with Staff Sgt. David Day, 25, of St. Louis Park, who grew up in Morris, and 1st Lt. Jason Timmerman, 24, of Tracy.