Soldier dies the death she said she feared (Jennifer Hartman)

Jennifer Marie Hartman, an exuberant Tamaqua High School grad who loved four-wheeling on all-terrain vehicles and all things that go fast, never expected to end up in Iraq.

But she was making the best of it, four years into her five-year commitment to the Army. She signed up right out of high school to get schooling to go into the medical field, said her dad, David Hartman of West Penn Township.

"When she signed up to go for schooling, the gentleman promised she wouldn't go to Iraq," the father said Friday. "If there was any chance in hell that she would go to Iraq, I wouldn't have signed that paper. I guess even the Army lies to get you to sign up."

Jennifer refused to talk to her family about what she was doing in Iraq. Instead, the Army sergeant would change the subject to four-wheeling on all-terrain vehicles — her biggest passion in life.

"She was into her four-wheeler — that's what she lived for," her dad said. "I think she would rather have died on her four-wheeler than over there."

Indeed, Jennifer's MySpace profile listed "Going really fast car, bike, quad, JetSki" as the way she'd like to die.

Her fear? "Getting blown up in Iraq."

On Friday the military confirmed that Jennifer Marie Hartman, 21, was killed on

Sept. 14 in a suicide truck bombing while she was in her barracks at a west Baghdad electrical substation that her unit was guarding. Two other soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded.

"The IED [improvised explosive device] detonated next to the sleeping building of the soldiers' operating base," said Capt. Warren Litherland, rear detachment commander for the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Division. "She was inside the patrol base at the time of the explosion. She was not working at the time of the incident."

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