Service: ARMY
Component: ACTIVE DUTY
Name: PRATT, DENNIS JOSEPH
Rank: SPC
Pay Grade: E03
Date of Death: 2009/07/20
Age: 34
Gender: MALE
Home of Record City: DUNCAN
Home of Record State: OK
Home of Record Country: US
Unit: 4TH HHC 2-25 FA
Incident Geographic Code: AF
Casualty Geographic Code: AF
Casualty Country: AFGHANISTAN
City of Loss: MAYDAN SHAHR DISTRICT
Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 117 (Thursday, July 24, 2014)
Senate
Page S4897
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov
HONORING OUR ARMED FORCES
Specialist Dennis J. Pratt
Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I wish to pay tribute to a true American hero, Army SPC Dennis J. Pratt, who died on July 20, 2009, serving our Nation in Maydan Shahr, Afghanistan. Specialist Pratt, SPC Anthony M. Lightfoot, SPC Andrew J. Roughton, and SGT Gregory Owens, Jr., died of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near their vehicle followed by an attack from enemy forces using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
Dennis was born January 7, 1975, in Waterbury, CT. After graduating high school in Southington, CT, he moved to Arizona, Oklahoma, and then Texas, where he joined the military. He married Michelle Bryant on May 9, 2008 in Lawton, OK.
After completing basic training at Fort Sill, OK, Dennis was assigned to 4th Battalion, 25th Field Artillery (Strike), 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, NY. A third-generation soldier and a 34-year-old father of three, Dennis was called “the old man” among comrades in his unit.
On January 6, 2009, he was deployed to Afghanistan as a field artillery automated tactical data systems specialist and reenlisted while there. “Dennis wasn’t supposed to be at that place at that time, but he always told us that the Army and serving his country was where he wanted to be. He had found his niche in life in the military,” said his mother.
Funeral services were held July 31, 2009, at the Fort Sill chapel, and he was laid to rest in Fort Sill National Cemetery, Elgin, OK. Dennis is survived by his wife Michelle, three children, Collin Kessler, Gabrielle Pratt, and Caden Bryant, parents, Jim and Sinammon Pratt, mother and father-in-law, Fred and Margaret Bryant, two brothers, Jim Pratt and wife Staci and their children Miranda, D.J. and Morgan and Kyle Hansan and wife Nicole and their daughter CaLista, one stepsister, Leanna Pratt, and a host of other relatives and friends. Today we remember Army SPC Dennis J. Pratt, a young man who loved his family and country and gave his life as a sacrifice for freedom.