Notes:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Sergeant William J. Beardsley, 25, of Coon Rapids, Minnesota, died February 26, 2007, in Diwaniyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.Beardsley was assigned to the 260th Quartermaster Battalion, 3rd Sustainment Troop Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia.
(source: Arlington National Cemetery).

TULSA, Okla. — A soldier with Minnesota ties who was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq this week was a native Oklahoman who lived briefly in Coon Rapids, Minn., where he worked as a landscape contractor.
 Army Sgt. William “B.J.” Beardsley, 25, a Muskogee native, was seven months into his first tour of duty in Iraq when he was killed Monday, according to the Defense Department. He was due back home next month on leave, family members said.
 “At 25, you got the rest of your life ahead of you, why not enjoy it, right?” said Beardsley’s aunt, Charlotte Guinn of Tahlequah.
 Enlisting in the military at 18, Beardsley was planning to become a career soldier, his family said. He spent three years stationed in South Korea and at Fort Campbell, Ky.
 He left the Army briefly in 2005 to work as a landscape contractor with his father in Coon Rapids but decided the military life was for him, said his mother, Lavonna Harper. So he re-enlisted last May and eventually shipped out for Iraq.
 At first, he believed the U.S. cause in Iraq was just, Harper said. But just a few weeks ago, Harper received an e-mail from him that said he couldn’t make sense anymore of why he was over there.
 “I wrote him back and told him to be careful and keep his head down and his butt covered,” Harper said. “I asked him what he needed me to send and when he was coming home.” She never got a response.
 Beardsley was born in Muskogee. When he was 5, he moved with his mother and stepfather — a career military man himself — to Germany and Georgia. He returned to Oklahoma when he was 16, moving to Tahlequah. He was married at 20 and recently divorced, his family said. Harper said her son was a devoted father to his two kids, enjoyed weightlifting and riding motorcycles.
 “I’ll miss talking to him, hearing his voice, touching him, just hearing me say the words ‘I love you, son,’” Harper said. “When they’re gone, it’s like ‘Oh my God.’”
 Beardsley was assigned to the 260th Quartermaster Battalion, 3rd Sustainment Troop Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division of Fort Stewart, Ga. He was the 52nd person with strong Minnesota ties to die in connection with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

William married Stacy A. NORMAN in 2001, and was divorced. Stacy (daughter of Mr. NORMAN and Jacki) was born est 1981. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Stacy Beardsley, a soldier’s wife released this week from the hospital after a grueling surgery, watched two men in pressed military uniforms walk steadily to her front door.
 "Tell me he’s just hurt," the Indiana woman told the pair, according to family friend Marilyn Piersdorf.
 "Well, they couldn’t tell her that," Piersdorf said.
 Her husband, Army Sgt. William "B.J." Beardsley, who recently lived in Coon Rapids, died Monday in Diwaniyah, Iraq, 80 miles south of Baghdad, after a roadside bomb went off near his vehicle.
 The 25-year-old soldier had re-enlisted, in part, for the health insurance to cover his wife’s medical bills. He died the day she left the hospital.
 The surgery had been on his mind until the end, said Beardsley’s biological father, Jim Beardsley, of Blaine. "On Friday, we talked and he said, ’If anything happens, call the Red Cross and they’ll call me and I’ll be there,’ " Jim Beardsley said.
 His son had another request. “He said, ‘If anything happens to me, I want to make sure my kids know who I am,’ ” Jim Beardsley said. “He was afraid that if something happened to him, the kids being as small as they are, they wouldn’t understand why he was gone. They’d think he was just gone. That was his fear.”
 Beardsley was born in Muskogee, Okla., and his parents split when he was a boy. He spent his early years hopping between military bases with his mother and stepfather, a military man himself.
 Jim Beardsley said his son arrived in Coon Rapids in 2002 or 2003 to operate heavy equipment at his father’s excavating business. “He’d outwork anybody. If somebody else would dig, he’d dig faster,” Jim Beardsley said.
 B.J. Beardsley left the Twin Cities in December 2005 to join the Army. His batta lion in the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga., left for Iraq last September to provide support for U.S. coalition troops and to help train Iraqi security forces. After Beardsley enlisted, his wife and their two children — a 3-year-old girl and 4-year-old boy — moved to an Indianapolis suburb to be closer to the wife’s family.
 It was B.J. Beardsley’s second term of service. He joined the Army just after high school, was stationed in South Korea and at Fort Campbell, Ky., and met his wife, a soldier at the time. The two married five years ago. After leaving the service, the couple arrived in Coon Rapids and spent three years hopping between there and Indiana, Jim Beardsley said, before family financial and medical concerns and the need for insurance prompted B.J. Beardsley’s re-enlistment.
 Beardsley’s mother, Lavonna Harper, who lives in Oklahoma, said at first her son believed the U.S. cause in Iraq was just. But just a few weeks ago, Harper received an e-mail from him that said he could no longer make sense of why he was over there. “I wrote him back and told him to be careful and keep his head down and his butt covered,” Harper said. “I asked him what he needed me to send and when he was coming home.” She never got a reply.
 Grandfather Jim Beardsley, of Roseville, noted that his grandson was known as a baseball pro on the military bases where he grew up — even joining a military kids’ traveling team while his parents were stationed in Georgia.
 Piersdorf, a former North St. Paul schoolteacher and a family friend, described Beardsley as one of the most polite men she had ever met. “He was rather quiet, respectful — but with a great smile,” Piersdorf said. “He had that Southern politeness about him.”
 “Anybody who would get out of the Army and go back in, with a wife and kids, do what he did, is a hero,” the soldier’s father said.
 B.J. Beardsley was scheduled to return to Indiana in April for his son’s fifth birthday, family members said. They were told he was to leave Iraq for stateside duty in August.
 Beardsley’s wife and biological father say Beardsley will be buried in Indiana, close to his widow and two children. The military will offer a full-honors memorial service in the Twin Cities area, though it has yet to be scheduled.
Beardsley was the 45th military member from Minnesota to die in the Iraq war.

James married Lavonna Gay GRAW. Lavonna was born on 21 Aug 1959. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 2013, Tahlequah, Cherokee, Oklahoma

Mr. married Jacki. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1940, Muskogee, Oklahoma
• Residence: 2007, Roseville, Ramsey, Minnesota

James married Lorna Rose SPLITTSTOESSER. Lorna (daughter of Donald Theodore SPLITTSTOESSER and Bessie Ethel LOVELACE) was born on 5 Jun 1935 in Ramsey, Minnesota. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]