Today is the 30th anniversary of a scud missile attack in Saudi Arabia that changed lives all across our region, including here in Indiana County.
Thirteen members of the Army Reserve 14th Quartermaster Detachment, part of Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War, were killed when the lone missile slammed into their barracks in Dhahran. Twenty-eight people died in the attack and 99 were wounded.
Among the dead were two women from Indiana County, 22-year-old Specialist Beverly Clark of East Wheatfield Township, and 23-year-old Specialist Christine Mayes of Rochester Mills. They were the first two American women of sixteen who were killed in the Gulf War.
Clark was a graduate of United High School and was a quality control supervisor at the former SeasonAll plant in Indiana. She was planning to enroll as an education major at IUP upon her return from the Gulf, and become a teacher.
Mayes was a Marion Center graduate and a business major at IUP when she enlisted in the Reserve after serving three years in the Army. She had gotten engaged on the day she left for Iraq.
Also killed in the 1991 attack were Specialist Steven Atherton of nearby Numine, in Armstrong County and Specialist Richard Wolverton of Derry Township, Westmoreland County.
The 14th Quartermaster Detachment will hold a private ceremony to honor the victims of the missile attack today at the headquarters in Hempfield Township, Westmoreland County.
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