Flags across New York State will fly at half staff on Monday in honor of Major John Pryor. Pryor, who was 42, was killed in Iraq last week.
I didn't know John Pryor, but he grew up in the same town and graduated from the same high school as me.
Major Pryor was a doctor, a trauma/critical-care surgeon at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania; he joined the Army Reserve Medical Corps shortly after September 11, which is how he came to be in Iraq last week.
From everything I've read, Dr. John Pryor was an amazing guy. In addition to his responsibilities at the hospital and with the Army, Pryor was chief medical adviser to the Red Cross in his area and "often had spent hours teaching Red Cross volunteers how to handle traumas".
Quite a loss.
