Sgt. Michael K. Clark

Michael K. Clark loved to ride dirt bikes and owned a custom-built motorcycle and a 1986 Mustang GT. He enjoyed snowboarding and mountain biking. "He loved to go fast," said his mother, Cherie Clark. Clark, 24, of Sacramento, Calif., died Oct. 7 in Mosul of wounds from small-arms fire. He was assigned to Fort Carson. He joined the Army four years ago and was on his second deployment to Iraq. He had been accepted to the Army Ranger school. "My son loved life with a passion," said Cherie Clark. "He had so much energy and life." When he shattered his hip socket in a dirt bike accident after his first deployment, she had asked if he could use his injury to not go back. But he felt that he had a duty to his fellow soldiers. "If something happened, I couldn''t live with myself," he told her. He received a medal for a February incident in which he pulled four soldiers from a Humvee that had been attacked and hit by an IED, his mother said. Three days before his death, he marked his fifth wedding anniversary with wife Nalini. Their son, Lucas, is 4. "They were everything to him," Cherie Clark said.