Cousins find it's a small world after all in Baghdad

Courtesy Photo | CAMP LIBERTY, IRAQ -- Pfc. Benjamin Rice, from Albertville, Ala., and Sgt. Benjamin Cronon, Adairsville, Ga., both of 3rd Battalion, 6th Field Artillery, 1-10th Mountain Division, were assigned to the same unit where they discovered that they were distant cousins. (courtesy photo)  

BAGHDAD, IRAQ

10.17.2005

Courtesy Story

DVIDS Hub       

Chaplain (Capt.) Jonathan Stertzbach

1/10th Mountain Division

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq " The story begins on a recent cold, dark, Ft. Drum, N.Y., night.

Pfc. Michael Rice and Sgt. Benjamin Cronon were sitting in the barracks enjoying their country heritage: listening to country music together, talking about Southern living, and American pride.

Rice and Cronon had been friends for eight months, and it was their "Appalachian American heritage" (as they called it) that drew them together this cold Yankee night.

In casual conversation, Cronon mentioned that his "granddaddy was a Shellhorse." Rice piped in that his grandmother was a "Shellhorse," and they laughed about how uncommon the name was.

Rice said it couldn't be possible it was the same family because his grandmother was a Cherokee Indian, and "Shellhorse" was her maiden name. The two soon found out that blood is thicker than country music.

When Cronon called home, he found out his grandfather is a first cousin to Rice's grandmother.

The family puzzle pieces began to fit together: back in the early 1800s, one of the "Shellhausens" (Americanized into Shellhorse) was a Hessian soldier who moved to Virginia, married a Cherokee woman and they had 10 children. Because the family is so large, neither of these Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 6th Field Artillery, 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division knew all of the branches on their family tree. They soon learned, however, that they're cousins.

The two are now serving in Task Force Baghdad, and helping bring security and stability to the streets of the Abu Ghraib district.

Other Soldiers in their unit will often hear these two Dixie boys talking with a deep Southern drawl, calling each other "Cuz" and "kin." Talk (or "jawing" as they call it) often consists of fishing stories, pickup trucks, Conway Twitty and Southern women.

The two are inseparable"unless, that is, Alabama Crimson Tide is playing the Georgia Bull Dawgs.

• Date Taken: 10.17.2005
• Date Posted: 10.17.2005 13:09
• Story ID: 3379
• Location: BAGHDAD, IQ