View Full Version : MSG Tony Yost
I got another one of those e-mails I hate today. Tony was one of those guys who was well-known in Group to include SWCS for his tech/tact-proficiency, being a great instructor, and the kinda guy you would want to have in the stack. He'll be greatly missed.
5026
Subject: De Oppresso Liber
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2005 13:28:18 -0500
On November 19th, 2005, in Eastern Mosul, Master Sergeant Tony Yost was
killed in an explosion during a raid on an Al Qaeda target house. Tony was
the Team Sergeant of ODA 381, a 6'4" Apache Indian, a Ranger, a Sniper, a
Free Fall Jumpmaster, a Weapons Specialist and more. He wasn't afraid to
tell you about what he knew or how something should be done. On targets he
would blast through doors like a freight train or throw an Iraqi soldier
over the courtyard wall to open a gate. We were together in 10th Special
Forces Group in the 90's and I was happy to run into him in Iraq. We
actually had a long conversation one night about 'the old days' and I took
this picture. He was a brave man and had led an assault force of Iraqi
soldiers into the Al Qaeda safe house. Inside a bomb was detonated that
leveled the entire building. Six Iraqi soldiers died following the Apache
Green Beret and thirteen Al Qaeda perished as well, we don't know which
ones yet but it was obviously a high level leadership type target. Two
hundred Green Berets arrived at Mosul Army Airfield today from all of their
outposts throughout northern Iraq and stood in rows to salute our friend,
our brother as he was placed on his last aircraft home, under the stars and
stripes he loved so much. De Oppresso Liber.
XXXX XXXXX
CPT SF
Detachment Commander
rubberneck
11-21-2005, 16:41
RIP.
Abu Jack
11-21-2005, 17:02
Rest In Peace
Abu Jack
See ya on the other side, Tony.
Team Sergeant
11-21-2005, 17:22
Special Forces Soldier dies in Iraq
U.S. Army Special Operations Command Public Affairs Office
FORT BRAGG, N.C. (USASOC News Service, Nov. 21, 2005) — An Army Special Forces Soldier died Nov. 19 in Mosul, Iraq of wounds sustained when an explosion occurred inside a building he was searching.
Master Sgt. Anthony R. C. Yost, 39, a Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha team Sergeant assigned to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, N.C., was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
At the time of his death, Yost was in the process of searching a building in Mosul for insurgents. During the search, an explosion occurred collapsing the building. Yost was killed by the blast.
Yost was born in Oklahoma and raised in Flint, Mich. He enlisted in the Army in 1987.
Yost was assigned to 3rd Bn., 3rd SFG in March 2005. He was a Special Forces Soldier for 13 years and served with 10th SFG, Fort Carson, Colo., as well as with the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School here.
His awards and decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, six Army Commendation Medals, six Army Achievement Medals, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Kosovo Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Korean Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Service Medal, NCO Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, NATO Medal, Senior Parachutist Badge, Military Freefall Master Parachutist Badge, Driver and Mechanic Badges, and the Special Forces Tab.
He is survived by his wife, Joann and his children, Donovan, Cheyenne, and Anthony.
Firebeef
11-21-2005, 17:22
RIP Tony. We'll miss you
aricbcool
11-21-2005, 18:21
RIP
TitratetoEffect
11-21-2005, 18:22
RIP
mffjm8509
11-21-2005, 18:36
Tony Yost was my teammate on ODA044 from 97-99. Tony was a true friend and a great American. If you were ever around him, or within the same room you would have known it. He was a giant and I will miss him.
I have the same email Longtab posted, along with a personal one from the author that said Tony had busted through the back door of the objective building with 6 Iraqi soldiers in tow, and closed to within 5 feet of the insurgents before they detonated themselves. I hope those bastards shit thier pants when they saw that giant Apache crashing accross the room. Thats a picture I just cant get out of my head and the way that I will always remember Tony.....in the fight.
I'm including a photo of Big Tony in Iraq a few weeks ago just after a conop.
Rest in Peace Brother!
mp
CoLawman
11-21-2005, 19:02
Eseese nanomonestatse!
My condolensces to all of you who served with Sergeant Yost.
rudelsg2
11-21-2005, 19:09
Rest in Peace Tony.
RIP MSG.
I got that same email that longtab got also. I didn't know him but I always heard the bravos always talking about him while I was in the Q.
NousDefionsDoc
11-21-2005, 19:44
En Paz Descanse Team Sergeant
Ambush Master
11-21-2005, 19:44
Thoughts and Prayers Out !! I feel for those that knew/worked with him. Been down that road myself.
Rest in Peace MSG Yost.
frostfire
11-21-2005, 19:50
Rest in peace, Master Sergeant
Goggles Pizano
11-21-2005, 19:51
Rest in Peace MSG Yost.
My sincere condolences to all of you on the loss of your Brother.
Rest in blessed peace MSG Yost, your ultimate sacrifice will not be forgotten.
smokfire
11-21-2005, 20:23
Rest in Peace Master Sergeant.
smokfire
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-21-2005, 20:40
RIP Warrior
CPTAUSRET
11-21-2005, 21:25
He was a stud, and a warrior!
He died doing what he loved!
Rest In Peace, Warrior!
Smokin Joe
11-21-2005, 21:29
RIP Master Sergeant.
Rest in Peace, Master Sergeant.
Peregrino
11-21-2005, 23:07
Rest in Peace MSG Yost. May your ancestors receive you with the honors you earned.
I didn't know him, but losing an operator is always a loss to the community. RIP MSG.
The Reaper
11-21-2005, 23:18
RIP Brother.
See you on the other side.
TR
Rest in Peace, Master Sergeant Yost.
My thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends.
Cincinnatus
11-22-2005, 13:39
RIP
uboat509
11-22-2005, 14:14
RIP Brother
SFC W
RIP Master Sergeant
Thanks for your service.
John
mffjm8509
11-23-2005, 09:41
There will be a memorial service for Tony at JFK Chapel on Fort Bragg on 07 1000 Dec 05. Tony will then be moved to Arlington and have a public viewing on the 8th (time TBD), and his internment will be on 09 1000 DEC 05. POC for those interested in going to the internment ceremony is CPT Scott Parlow, 3/3 Adjutant at 910-432-9448.
mp
To paraphrase Churchill, never was so much owed to so few by so many. RIP Brave Warrior.
I first meet MSG Yost at Bragg (then SFC) when he was teaching at the Bravo course. I was there to reclass from a Charlie to a Bravo. He was one hell of an instructor and really set a great example. One great operator. RIP
SnafuRacer
11-24-2005, 23:03
RIP MSG Yost
When I read of another fallen Soul, I think that the world is a little more worse off. We lose more than one person. We lose the contributions that person would have added to the world. We lose generations of people who would build a better world on the teachings of this person. The lost is not one person. It is our whole society that loses. Yet without out Person like this, we would all fall into darkness.
RIP
Warrior-Mentor
11-27-2005, 15:40
RIP Tony.
JM
ssgglover
12-02-2005, 03:34
Tony was larger then life, and a PT animal.
I just remember thinking how the hell is this giant, running and rucking us in the dirt.
Take a knee Tony, you've done your best.
Godspeed Brother...
brianksain
12-10-2005, 18:54
Tony was on our roster at AmericanSnipers. Always trying to get better gear for his guys and those he instructed.
One of my guys sent me this link:
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/1367539.html
RIP MSG.
BK
scribbler
05-30-2006, 12:42
A Widow’s Journey
Baby steps
By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer
Joann Yost can’t find the words to tell her 2-year-old son that his father is dead.
It has been seven months and Yost still struggles when A.J. asks where his father is.
Sometimes she says he is at work. Others, she just says he will be gone for a long time.
If you ask A.J., he’ll tell you his daddy is at work and probably point to a picture on the family’s refrigerator. The photo shows a smiling A.J. in his father’s lap.
A.J. just wants him home. One Sunday last month, A.J. was misbehaving and Yost took him to his room.
“I want my daddy!” he screamed at her.
“I do, too!” she yelled back.
The photo on the refrigerator records the last time that Joann Yost and A.J. saw him. It was taken at Green Ramp on Pope Air Force, where soldiers gather to board planes for deployments.
It was Joann’s last chance to hold her husband, her last kiss. Now, every time she looks into her son’s blue eyes, all she sees is Tony.
Master Sgt. Tony Yost, 39, was looking for insurgents in a building in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul when he was killed in November. He was a team sergeant with the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Group.
“My future as I know it came to a halt that day,” Joann Yost said.
She has been through Christmas, a wedding anniversary and her 40th birthday without him. As she struggles to find her new place in the world, Yost faces her first Memorial Day — a day set aside to honor those killed in the country’s wars, including the more than 2,700 who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yost said it is the hardest day of all.
***
A military widow’s story starts with a knock at the door.
Three soldiers — one is always a chaplain — in their dress uniforms stand at the door. “We regret to inform you ...”
Yost has flashbacks.
“I see the men that come to my door every day,” she said. “I didn’t believe it. Maybe they are going to tell me it was somebody else. In reality, I knew why they were here.”
When the knock came, Yost was headed to a baby shower. She was in a good mood. Her husband had sent her an e-mail that morning. It was upbeat, full of hope.
“I would like to get you a nice leather jacket,” he wrote. “What would you like? Would you like a Turkish rug for the house? I have a sweet connection here in Mosul, I think I told you? It is going to be a new years X-mas for us at the Yost residence. So put in your wish list to Santa Tony.”
The next three weeks were a blur.
She couldn’t sleep. People streamed in and out of her house. They came with flowers, food and tears. At night, when the house was quiet, she cried.
Three weeks after his death, Yost buried her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.
The coffin was closed. She never saw his body.
His fellow soldiers and her friends told her it wasn’t something she needed to see. To this day, she struggles with the decision not to take a last look.
For a while after the funeral, she told herself that Tony was on a secret mission and that the story that he was dead was a way of protecting him. That myth was shattered when the survivors from Tony’s A-team returned from Iraq. They came to the house after Christmas to pay their respects.
“I had to face the reality that he was not coming back,” she said.
***
Yost grew up in a military family. Her father is a 35-year Army veteran who served in special operations and conventional units.
She met Tony at a gym a few weeks before Sept. 11, 2001. She instantly took to him.
“Tony and I were perfect together. We were soul mates,” she said. “He was bigger than life. He was 10 feet tall and bulletproof.”
They were married on Valentine’s Day three years ago.
Both of them already had children from past marriages. Yost raised her 18-year-old son, Donovan, alone. She had looked forward to bringing up A.J. with Tony.
“I am not afraid of being on my own,” she said. “I don’t want to be.”
Now, it is only Friday nights that break up her loneliness. That’s when she will often head to Charlie Mike’s, a pub on North Reilly Road favored by Special Forces soldiers.
Yost likes to go to Charlie Mike’s because she is among friends there. Some of the people there knew her and her husband as a couple. Some just knew her husband. Almost all know what happened.
On a recent Friday night, Yost was dressed in a beige summer dress. Holding a beer, she danced slowly on the bar with a group of women — a common occurrence in the pub.
She seemed lost in the music and her movements.
“I want to be treated like a lady,” she had said over the rock music blaring out of the corner jukebox. “I want someone to open my door. Take me to dinner.”
But for now, anyway, that is out of the question. That’s a lesson she learned from Theresa Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick knows what Yost is going through; she lost her husband 14 years ago. She is Yost’s confidante, mentor and drinking buddy on Fridays.
One night when the two were at the bar, a Special Forces soldier was making small talk with Yost. She went to use the restroom and the soldier asked Fitzpatrick who Yost was. Fitzpatrick told the soldier that she was Tony Yost’s wife. The soldier said immediately that Yost was “off limits.”
When Yost got back to the bar, the soldier was gone and she was confused. All she wanted to do was talk.
Fitzpatrick had to explain to Yost that during the first year of being a widow, no one would date her. Most guys connected with the Special Forces won’t even talk to her.
“By the second year, you’re dating,” Fitzpatrick told her. “But you never truly give in, and if a man gets too close you push them away.”
It takes about five years before you can have a normal relationship, Fitzpatrick said.
Yost sometimes feels as if she is wearing a giant “W” on her forehead. She is tired of people feeling sorry for her. The pitying looks of well-wishers enrage her. Some of the couple’s friends from the past don’t call any more, but she says they talk about her. Whether she is seen out having a good time or staying locked away in her house, they gossip.
“You are ridiculed for trying to find your place in society again,” Yost said. “I feel like I should be accepted. I am doing the same things I would have done if Tony was alive.”
***
Framed on the wall of the bar is a photo of Tony that she likes to point out. He is looking at the camera, his rifle against his shoulder. He looks happy.
Yost says she is not bitter or angry about her husband’s death.
“He would have done this 10 times over,” she said.
But still the little things bring back the pain.
She took A.J. to a hockey game in the winter, but couldn’t get through the national anthem.
“When I look at the flag, it symbolizes my husband and everybody else who has died for our country,” she said.
Songs on the radio that remind her of Tony bring on tears.
Tony Yost was an Apache and was proud of his heritage. The other soldiers on his A-team called him “Chief.”
Yost said that when she and Tony were driving to or from their house in Raeford, he would often see a hawk circling in the sky. He would tell his wife that it was his hawk.
A hawk now circles their home, Yost said. To her, it’s Tony watching over the family, urging her to go on with her life.
She has, with baby steps.
In the months after his death, she bought new furniture, a new car and new sod for the yard. Some are things the couple talked about before Tony left.
But even as she moves on, she clings to some things from the past. Yost recently bought a new white SUV. She had to have a GMC Envoy, the exact model Tony wanted to buy for her when he got back.
Yost dreads Memorial Day. She knows she will not want to get out of bed. But she’ll get up, put out the flag and get A.J. breakfast.
She’ll think of Tony and she’ll look outside for a hawk.
Jaeger1980
05-30-2006, 17:20
Rest in Peace.
Respectfully
Jäger
I spent Memorial Day at Arlington with a friend of MSG Yost's, and of course we stopped by his grave to pay our respects along with other fallen SF warriors.
RIP, MSG.
Thanks, Blue. I appreciate you taking the time to say hello for us.
It was the least I could do, and an honor. He has several brothers around him. As Gen. Patton said, “Let me not mourn for the men who have died fighting, but rather let me be glad that such heroes have lived.”
Rumblyguts
08-08-2006, 11:18
Please pardon the intrusion...
I'm passing on some info that was posted at another forum roughly a month ago, but it doesn't apear to be mentioned here.
An appeal was posted for friends of MSG Yost, or those wishing to pay respects, to visit a memorial website in his honor. It has a guestbook for those who wish to write something, and that book is viewed by his daughter and family. I'm sure they'd appreciate a kind word.
Respectfuly
site: http://www.andyyost.com
Basicload
08-10-2006, 17:10
Damn! I did not hear about this.
I knew MSG Yost from when he worked at the Weapon's Sergeant course. I went over by the wind tunnel and talked to him on several occasions and I gave him a KAC MRE Ras kit for his work gun. We talked about him building me a 1911 at some point.
I really liked him from my dealings with him.
RIP bro.
sitfly36
09-24-2011, 22:16
Thanks for teaching me how to skydive bro
Fallen not forgotten!
greenberetTFS
09-25-2011, 05:56
God Bless,Rest in Peace Warrior.......:(
He was just a simple soldier and his ranks are growing thin
But his presence should remind us; we may need his like again,
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.
If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in the paper that might say:
OUR COUNTRY IS IN MOURNING, FOR A SOLDIER DIED TODAY. (author unknown)
The passing of our soldiers often go unnoticed and unsung by most of the world, remembered only by family and friends. Wish it were not so. May this Warrior,RIP, his family will be in my thoughts and prayers.
Big Teddy
Jack or Crown Brother.. You missed Chief