Holly J. McGeogh
Specialist, United States Army
August 29, 1984 – January 31, 2004
Age – 19
Taylor, MI
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Company A, 4th Forward Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Division (Mech), Fort Hood, TX
Died when her vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device in Kirkuk, Iraq
SPC Holly J. McGeogh called home in October, two days after a female soldier was killed in Tikrit, where she was based. The call put to rest the family’s fear that it had been McGeogh who was killed. She told her parents that the soldier who died had been her good friend and roommate. She said if she were to die we should remember that she died for a reason. Holly will always be remembered as a very, very brave soldier.
SPC McGeogh aimed for the Army early in high school. She spent four years as a cadet with the JROTC enlisting after graduation in 2002 from Truman High School.“She was totally dedicated to going into the Army — that was her destiny,” said her high school guidance counselor, William Teller. Teller said the uniform she wore to school once a week was festooned with medals.
At Christmas last year, McGeogh sent her mother and stepfather cards that urged them to celebrate the holidays for her. The cards arrived a few days after her funeral. “She had told me that there was a Christmas box coming home and that she had gotten me a really cool Iraqi rug,” her mother Paula Zasadny said.
“She absolutely loved the Army,” Zasadny said. “One time she told me: ‘Mom, you have to understand that I am doing exactly what I want to do and if I die doing it, I will die doing something I believe in.’ “Those are her words that I will remember.”
Willy was what Paula Zasadny called her baby girl, Holly. It was the random result of a silly rhyming game she played with her daughter. “Holly, wolly, bolly” eventually became “Willy” and for some reason the name stuck.
To the day SPC Holly J. McGeogh died — she was Willy, if only to her mother.
That is how she signed the Christmas card last year — “Love Willy.” It arrived about two weeks after she died, in a box with other items. “It was devastating,” said Zasadny “but at same time it was comforting because I knew she had touched everything in the box.”
Willy was a fearless kid who always wanted to ride the newest, biggest, fastest roller coaster at Cedar Point, and did not flinch when she tried bungee jumping. She was 5-foot-1 and the company commander in Junior ROTC.
In Iraq, she was a meticulous truck mechanic and drove a troop transport truck with a grenade launcher mounted on the back. She eagerly volunteered for every mission and patrol and was disappointed when she was not picked. She once apprehended a fleeing man in a dark alley, threatening to shoot him dead if he didn’t stop, then throwing him against a wall.
But she also taught Iraqi kids the game duck-duck-goose, and gave them licorice. She could never get her mom to mail enough candy. Or hot sauce from Taco Bell. Willy put it on everything. Unable to convince her local Taco Bell to sell her a box of hot sauce, Zasadny ate there everyday, collecting enough packets to mail to Iraq.
When Willy helped bring running water to a village, she splashed and played in the spray. Like the kid she was, not that long ago.