Local GI returned to U.S. after fatal Iraq injury

A soldier from Portsmouth who died after an accident in Iraq returned to U.S. soil Friday.

Spc. Shawn Dante Sykes, a 28-year-old who was assigned to the 215th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, was injured Tuesday in an accident at Combat Outpost Crazy Horse in Iraq. He was sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where he died Thursday.

Sykes' remains were returned to Dover Air Force Base on Friday, authorities said.

He was assigned to Fort Hood, Texas. He joined the military in August 2001 as a food services specialist.

Sykes deployed to Iraq in December.

His decorations and awards include the Navy Commendation Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon and Navy Sea Service Deployment Ribbon, according to a news release from Fort Hood.

Marion Cotton, his mother, returned from Delaware late Friday night and told WVEC-TV that the news of her son's death tore her up.

“I cried almost the whole ride there,” she said in the interview. “That’s my only son, my first born.”

She said that she spoke with her son, the oldest of five children, while he was in the hospital in Germany.

Cotton told WVEC-TV, a propane tank exploded in her son’s face while he was on the job as a food services specialist, cooking as he had since he joined the military. Sykes was in the Marine Corps before becoming a soldier. 

Sykes graduated from Churchland High School.

Pilot writers Patrick Wilson and Lauren King contributed to this report.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com