Logan (Douglas L.) Tinsley killed in rollover accident

He's always felt pride in Logan Tinsley.

“I'm proud now,” says Master Sgt. Al Boyd, the non-commissioned officer who teaches the Chester High School J-ROTC program in which Tinsley excelled for four years.

But there is guilt as well, he says, his deep voice breaking, trying to choke back tears.

Spec. D. Logan Tinsley was killed in Iraq around noon Baghdad time Tuesday.

Tinsley's mother Lori Fairfax Tinsley said, more than once Tuesday, Boyd was like another father to her sons, and set an example for Logan.

“As soon as he met you, saw you in your uniform, he told me, ‘Mama, I want to join the Army,'” Lori said Wednesday.

The Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps' goal is to teach leadership and citizenship. Life skills, Boyd said.

Boyd wasn't the only person influencing Logan's decision, his mother said. Tinsley's father, Douglas Vance Tinsley, was in the military. Lori's own father was.

But Boyd was a big part of Logan's formative years.

“I'm wondering if not for me, where he might have been today,” Boyd said, choking up for the first time in a lengthy interview.

Boyd is an impressive non-com, according to U.S. Rep. John Spratt.

Spratt met Tinsley and Boyd years ago at a “dining-in” banquet. Tinsley was all business, acting as Spratt's escort and guide for the ceremony.

Logan Tinsley and his younger brother Ryan helped lead the Chester High unit to getting a top national ranking, called an honor unit.

Logan was the executive officer of the Chester battalion.

That's the second in command to most folks. Boyd said the battalion commander is the student in the unit who makes the decisions. But the “X.O.” is the guy who “makes it happen.”

“It's hard to talk about it,” he said Wednesday. “I've been thinking a lot about it. He was a fantastic student, one of the brightest guys. It was a privilege to train him.”

Boyd is not exactly sure, but he's convinced Logan had a photographic memory.

“He'd read something then a few minutes later tell me all about it, verbatim,” Boyd said. “I told him, “It's real hard, as a teacher, to keep up with you.'”

He kept in contact with Logan after he graduated and enlisted in the Army.

“I try to keep in touch with all my cadets,” he said.

But when Boyd learns that one is to be deployed, he tries to have a special conversation with his cadets.

In October, when Logan was to be deployed from Alaska to Iraq, he had that long talk with him.

Logan was trying to talk about a new young lady in his life, his fiancee, Sarah Nelson.

“When you're deployed, you need to stay focused and be sharp,” he said. “These are the types of things you need to do, because I want to see you back here. We can always talk about girls later,” Boyd said.

He was able to talk to Logan from his own experience. He has 22 years in, active duty, including service in Iraq during the first Gulf War. He was reluctant to discuss it with The N&R.

But he said JROTC is about teaching, its mission is to motivate young people to be better citizens, to teach life skills.

He had direct experience of war he tried to share with Logan.

That was the last time he spoke to Logan.

“I had been expecting to hear from him about now,” Boyd said.

He hadn't heard too many details when he spoke to The N&R of what happened to Logan in Iraq.

“I expect he was being all he can be when it happened,” he said.

Logan had MySpace and Facebook accounts. The MySpace account heading says he enjoyed some of the wilder parts of his job.

“I want to go fast,” the headline says. “I jump out of planes for a living. You can't beat that,” he wrote.

The young man Boyd trained and shaped and grew to love was a medic who took care of his company. His MySpace file shows him operating with another medic, trying to reinflate a punctured lung on another soldier.

“He's a dynamic leader, a great thinker,” Boyd said. “He had many many friends. I've gotten calls from everywhere.”

He'd gotten more than 21 messages just from the time he heard around 8 p.m. Tuesday to Wednesday morning.

Boyd said he wanted to talk with Ryan, Logan's brother, who is training with the 82nd Airborne and may be deployed to Iraq at anytime.

Lori says Ryan is eager to go over now, more than ever, interested in vengeance.

Boyd said that is not the right place to be. The focus for Logan was on doing his duty and serving his country, doing his best for his mother and family

“Vengeance tends to cloud judgment,” he said.

The death gives you a totally different perspective, Boyd said.

Ryan was reluctant to say much. Friends say he is trying to be strong for his mother, and that he had looked up to Logan almost as a father figure as well.

He says he wasn't sure if Logan wanted to be deployed to fight or not, but he wanted to be deployed before he learned of his brother's death.

“I want to go now for the same reason I always wanted to go,” he said Wednesday afternoon. “I want to do my part. If not me, than who?”

Boyd has been hearing from some other people in the current JROTC unit. A few would still remember Logan, who graduated more than two years ago.

He's trying to help the family as much as possible. He drove from their home late Tuesday to guide a casualty officer from Fort Jackson to the Tinsley home.

The casualty officer explained to Lori what happened and as much as she could about the arrangements. The family doesn't know how long it will take to get him back home for burial.

“In peacetime, it takes seven to 10 days,” said Rhonda Graham, Lori's companion, Thursday morning. “In wartime, it's unknown how long it may take.”

As for Boyd, he is remembering what Lori said.

From the first time he saw me, he knew he wanted to be a soldier,” he said. “That's weighing heavy on my heart.”

Students in high school are claimed by their teachers or coaches many times. But if a kid is in JROTC, he doesn't belong to the English teacher or the football coach. They are JROTC students above all else.

Maj. Donald Holland, another instructor with Chester's JROTC unit for two years when Logan was there contacted Boyd and is coming here from his new home in Georgia.

“He was our boy,” Boyd said. Some kids drop in and out of the program, but Logan was in it for four years.

“Four years is a lot of time to get to know someone,” he said. “I was proud of him, and I'm proud of him right now.

“He's my boy - he's what this country is all about.”

From the News & Reporter