ONE OF OUR OWN

And by all personal accounts with the folks I've spoken to, he was an exceptional young man.

First Lt. Benjamin J. Colgan always stood out.

“Superhuman and fearless,” is how Lt. Col. Bill Rabena described Colgan, 30, of Kent, Wash. Rabena, battalion commander with the 1st Armored Division’s Giessen-based 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, tried to define Colgan by his long list of achievements, but concluded that words “fall woefully short.”

“To me, Ben was the bravest, most decent and selfless man I’ve ever known,” Rabena wrote in Colgan’s eulogy, which was read Nov. 11, Veterans Day, at Colgan’s funeral in Aurora, Mo., his wife Jill’s hometown.