Mansfield soldier dies in Iraq

A picture of Corey Shea from his Myspace page.

By Milton Valencia, Globe Staff

MANSFIELD – He was good at football and hockey and one heck of a poker player. Corey Shea was also good at being a soldier, his family said today.

“He was a hero,” his mother, Denise Anderson, said. “He was my hero.”

Shea, 21, died in Iraq Wednesday near the city of Mosul when he and other soldiers were ambushed by a renegade Iraqi soldier with possible ties to al Qaeda. One other soldier was killed, six more were injured. The Iraqi soldier was shot dead.

Specialist Shea, a cavalry scout with the Killer Troop, 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Hood, Texas, had been in Iraq for a year. His tour of duty was to expire in January.

Family and friends gathered on the front porch of Shea's parents' house this evening, reminiscing about him.

Shea joined the Army for the camaraderie, the sense of belonging. No one likes being in war, but he liked being a soldier, his mother said. He drove Humvees and Bradley vehicles, and manned gun turrets.

“Anything they told him to do, he’d do in a heartbeat,” his mother said.

Shea is the first soldier from Mansfield to die in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Massachusetts Veterans Services’ office.

He graduated from Mansfield High School in 2005. A popular student, he had close friends and many girlfriends. He was handsome, his mother said.

Shea took some college classes but wanted to be a soldier and enlisted not long after high school, his mother said. He was stationed in Texas before he was deployed.

He returned to his old school just weeks ago, during a leave, to see his old teachers and show them the person he had become.

“One of the teachers told him he could do what he wanted with his life, and he went back to show him,” said his sister, Kristen Anderson, a 17-year-old who attends the school now. The school had a moment of silence in Shea’s honor today.

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