Ira Kingfisher Schaefer

This is Ira's story as told by his loving mother,
Crissy......aka dcis3

Ira Kingfisher Schaefer was born Nov. 10th 1978 in Seattle Washington to Crissy Smith. He is the youngest son of two boys and an only son to his father.
He was raised in Juneau Alaska by myself and his step father who is the only father he ever knew with two sisters  Peaches ( Pauline) & Maritess.  He Graduated from high school in 2000 and went right into the Navy.

Ira's  brothers and sister are as follows

Erica , Maritess, Jim, Brandi, Heath, Joe, Terri, Pauline, Paul, Snuffy, Doug, Butch, Gerald, Howe& Kathy & Jaon, April & larry and April T.
He is single and no kids of his own and not interested in any of it as long as he is in the military said he wouldn't want to drag a family through this with him .
He has served as a Medical Corpsman since then for the Marines until recently when he was reassigned to the navy and taken from the marines to serve in Texas with the Navy.
He was in boot camp before the Cole was bombed and with the marines when 9-11 hit
He spent the year of 2001- 2002 in Japan as his unit was stationed over there before the war in Iraq broke out.
He received a Navy and Marine corps medal of achievement while stationed in the Philippines for attempting to save the life of a Filipino soldier who later died of his injuries.This occurred during a training exercise when they were sent there to help train the Philippine troops in fighting the terrorist cell groups there.
Once back on U.S.,  soil the Navy reassigned him to another unit to train others and sent his original unit he had been attached to for 3 years to Iraq where in one week his original unit lost 12 men one of which was his best navy buddy for three years.His being reassigned is something he didn't want but it happened and has been rough on him since then.
Ira  was then restationed.  This time he was sent to Texas and then received his orders for Iraq the beginning of July of this year. He will spend 6 months to a year there with the navy in a mash unit.
Ira also has received a dessert Docs plaque and recognition for being in the Philippines as well as Korea. During his being stationed in Japan he saw 5 other countries in that area. Korea , the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, the other one I cant remember. He also has received the good conduct medal.
 He has been trained not only as a Medical Corpsman but in tanks and sniper training and repelling among other things.I mention this because thought as a doc it was weird LOL oh well ya never know how stitch one bow up the other right? boys and there toys.
During 9-11 we had 3 sons in the military, Ira being my son,
Joe stationed in Italy in the Marines at that time is Ira's sisters brother
Heath who was just going to get out of the Marines but was stuck in until further notice is my hubbys son
since then Joe has returned to the USA and Heath has gotten out of the service and gone on to train search and rescue dogs in California
 

Ira, Joe, and Heath all have our prayers and best wishes to guide
them safely home.

Thank you Crissy, for this wonderful story about an amazing and
outstanding young man.

Ira's sister drew this lovely angel to watch over her brother