Students, professors and coaches at Johns Hopkins University are reeling from two graduates? deaths in Iraq within a month.
“That is really tough, losing two within a very short period of time,” university spokesman Dennis O?Shea said.
Army 1st Lt. Colby J. Umbrell, 26, of Doylestown, Pa., died Thursday in Musayyib, Iraq, after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle, the Department of Defense said.
Umbrell, a 2004 graduate in political science, played football for Hopkins as a defensive lineman and helped the Blue Jays win the Centennial Conference title for the first time.
Coach Jim Margraff said that while Umbrell suffered many injuries during his football career, “he was a focused, disciplined, relentless athlete … and one of the most well-liked,” university President William Brody wrote in an e-mail sent to the university community Friday night.
Army Capt. Jonathan D. Grassbaugh, 25, of East Hampstead, N.H., died Apr. 7 in Zaganiyah, Iraq, when a homemade bomb detonated near his unit during his second tour.
Grassbaugh, a 2003 graduate who majored in computer science, was the top cadet in the university?s ROTC program.
He is survived by his wife, Jenna Grassbaugh, a 2006 alumna.
“I … have no way to describe to you what a loss this represents not only to me but to the community and to the world,” Jenna Grassbaugh told the university?s employee newsletter. “He was more than I could ever ask for in a husband, and he was more than my husband ? he was my best friend, my other half, and now he is my angel in heaven.”
Friends told the newsletter that Jonathan Grassbaugh matured at Hopkins from a shy teenager to a leader within the Blue Jay Battalion.
