FORT PIERCE — Two men arguing while on Okeechobee Road in Fort Pierce Saturday night died after being hit by a vehicle, according to a Florida Highway Patrol report.

The Fort Myers News-Press is reporting Monday morning that the men were soldiers traveling to Southwest Florida to surprise their families before being deployed by the U.S. Army to Iraq.

Joshua Thomas Baker, 24, of North Fort Myers, and Jonathan Wendell Peterson, 21, of Fort Myers, were in the inside lane when the front of a westbound vehicle struck them, according to the report. Baker was thrown into the inside lane and Peterson was thrown into the grass median.
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DOVER, Del. — The body of a former Port St. Lucie resident killed in Iraq on Sunday was flown here early Tuesday afternoon, where his parents and siblings waited for him.

Army Spc. Michael Anaya, 23, died in Bayji, northwest of Baghdad, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

His parents, Carmelo Sr. and Cheryl, and his older siblings, Carmelo Jr. and Trista Moffett, watched as the flag-draped box carrying his body was saluted and led across the tarmac by an honor guard.

“They did a very professional job. It was like they were handling their own family,” his sister said. “They were wonderful to him and to us.”

After the box was placed in a medical examiner’s van, Moffett and other family members returned to their vehicle and watched through the windows as Michael disappeared from sight.

“We sat until we couldn’t see him anymore,” she said. “We watched the honor guard walk away.

“It still feels so unreal,” she added.

The media was allowed to photograph the transfer of the soldier from the airplane to the van waiting to take him to the medical examiner’s office. (more…)