Army Sergeant James M. Darrough

The content below includes audio from Army Sergeant James Darrough's father, Robert Darrough. Audio transcripts are available at the bottom of the page.

Sergeant Darrough, military headshot

Army Sergeant James M. Darrough, 38

101st Finance Company, 101st Special Troops Battalion, 101st Sustainment Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, KY

K.I.A. October 29th, 2011 by a hostile vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in Kabul, Afghanistan

Remembering James Darrough

Born in Miami on May 29th, 1973, James Darrough came to Manatee County at seven years old, when his father moved from Portland, Oregon to Bradenton to help his mother—James’s grandmother—run a franchised business here. He attended Anna Maria Elementary, King Middle School, and graduated from Manatee High School in 1991. Having moved to Northwest Bradenton, he worked part-time at the Winn-Dixie in Beachway Plaza, and enjoyed going to the beach and bowling with friends.

AUDIO: Life in Bradenton (Robert Darrough)

Darrough first enlisted in the Army in 1992, where he handled medical supply logistics. He was deployed to Haiti in support of Operation Uphold Democracy, a peacekeeping mission designed to return Haiti’s democratically elected President Aristide to power after a military coup.

AUDIO: First Enlistment and Haiti (Robert Darrough)

After ending his first period of service with the Army in the late 1990s, Darrough began a career in banking. However, after the 2008 recession, he re-enlisted and became a financial management technician in the 101st Airborne Division, providing essential logistical support to the division in its frequent deployments overseas. A technical expert, he led the creation of a new tracker that made the Army’s procurement process more transparent and cut the Army’s payment time by over half, from forty days to just fifteen.

Having begun his third deployment in 2011, Darrough was contributing to work on an online military pay response system and a digital headquarters system that could maintain command and control within the combat zone and on missions. On October 29th, 2011, he was traveling in an armored Rhino NATO bus on Kabul’s Darulaman Road to deliver soldiers’ paychecks, having taken the place of a fellow finance technician who had fallen ill, when a Taliban suicide bomber struck his vehicle with a van carrying 1,500 pounds of explosives. Thirteen Americans and four Afghans were killed in the insurgent’s attack. Darrough was thirty-eight years old, leaving behind a wife and four children. In March of 2014, NATO forces dedicated a new logistics center at Kandahar Airfield in his honor.  

AUDIO: Remembering James (Robert Darrough)

Audio Transcripts

Transcript #1: Life in Bradenton (Robert Darrough)

He worked at—primarily he worked at Winn-Dixie right there on Manatee when it was Beachway Plaza, when they had a location there. And he hung out pretty much with his friends in the parking lot at the Beachway Plaza after work. He did go to the beach a lot, he loved going to the beach. And he’d bowl—he loved bowling, he hung out at Cortez Road a lot.

Transcript #2: First Enlistment and Haiti (Robert Darrough)

After he got through high school—now, he did get an award, which is rare, when he graduated from high school, he got an award. I don’t know if it’s called a certain award, but he never, ever missed a day of school and was never tardy or late getting to school. He never missed one day the four years of high school. So that was quite an honor, quite an achievement.

After high school, after he graduated, he was kind of floundering, he really didn’t know if he wanted to go to the college at the time, or—I said, well you really should maybe even just check in with joining the service, and maybe they’ll help you decide on a career once you get in, and move you along in a career.

And he did, he went down and came back and said he had enlisted for four years with the Army, and he was going to be in medical supply, is what he was going to be into. And that’s what got him in.

He did one stint in that order state when they sent him to Haiti, when Haiti had a bit of a problem back in the late—I guess it was late ‘90s. He spent about six months or so in Haiti.

Transcript #3: Remembering James (Robert Darrough)

He was just a pleasant person. A pleasant person to know. That would have to be his biggest trait: he was just an easy, pleasant person. He actually, on the day he died, there was—the person who was supposed to be taking the checks around to the different camps got sick and couldn’t do it—and James, well, decided to take his place. He volunteered.

Sgt. Darrough headshot

Sgt. Darrough Sustainment Center dedicated at Kandahar