R.I.P. MA2 Brian M. Patton

Name: Navy Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Brian M. Patton

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Age: 37

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From: Freeport, Ill.

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Assigned to

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Incident: Navy Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Brian M. Patton died Nov. 19 in Kuwait of injuries suffered in a noncombat-related accident.

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Died: November 19, 2009

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(Taken from http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/) U.S. Navy Reserve Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian M. Patton called his wife from Kuwait on Wednesday night and told her he missed her. It was their wedding anniversary, and they talked about a trip to Hawaii they planned to take when his deployment was complete.

Within an hour, Petty Officer Patton was dead.

The 37-year-old Nanticoke man was killed just after midnight Thursday in a head-on crash with a civilian vehicle near a military base in Kuwait, his family said Friday.

Petty Officer Patton was traveling in an SUV when a civilian contractor in a pickup truck crashed into his vehicle while trying to pass a military convoy, according to his wife, Amy Hynoski Patton.

"It's so surreal. It hasn't hit me. I'm sure it will tonight. I keep waiting for him to call," Mrs. Hynoski Patton said. "All I have been doing is crying."

She said her husband called about 11:45 p.m. Wednesday, their ninth wedding anniversary, and the two spoke about buying plane tickets for an upcoming trip to Hawaii with their son.

"When he was hanging up, he said, 'I miss you.' I said, 'Good, I'm glad." she said.

The Department of Defense announced Petty Officer Patton's death on its Web site Friday, but released no details, only saying he died "in a non-combat accident."

Petty Officer Patton, an active-duty military veteran of the first Gulf War, was a member of a Navy Reserve unit based in Binghamton, N.Y. He volunteered for deployment to Kuwait to serve as a military police officer, his wife said. The unit deployed in March.

For the past four years, he was a corrections officer at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas.