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Spc. Ryan Anthony Gartner (COURTESY KIIITV)
Although information wasn’t yet available from the government, Gartner’s grandmother confirmed his death for the Corpus Christi Caller Times and KIIITV in Texas.
Gartner was due to return to Dumont in April, in time for his 24th birthday, after more than a year in Afghanistan.
UPDATE: The Defense Department announced Saturday that Army Spc. Ryan A. Gartner, 23, recently of Dumont, “died of wounds sustained in a noncombat incident” while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. READ MORE….
Gartner had spent time in Dumont following his childhoood in Aransas Pass, Texas. After attending Dumont High School, where he was in the Junior ROTC, he earned a GED in 2004 from the New Jersey National Guard Challenge Youth Program at Fort Dix, then joined the Army.
His mother, Caroline Oley, has flown to Delaware, where his body was scheduled to arrive early Friday. It will be about another week before he returns to Aransas Pass for a military funeral, his grandmother told the newspaper and TV station.
“His mother got a call and they told her ‘Your son died a brave man’,” Gartner’s grandmother, Mariana Soto-Mota, told the
Corpus Christi Caller Times. “Everyone is so upset right now.”Click here to follow Daily Voice Bergenfield and receive free news updates.
