Location: 429
Date: 11/17/2003
Rank: Captain
Branch: U.S. Army
Operation: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Ray Linford remembers Army Capt. James Shull as a special person, so special that he lent his Porsche to Shull for Shull’s high school senior prom. “He was the hardest worker I’ve ever seen,” Linford said. “I used to tell him to take it easy, he was working so hard.” The Department of Defense reported that Shull, 32, died Nov. 17 from an accidental gunshot wound he received in Baghdad while serving with the 1st Armored Division. Married with three young children, Shull had been in Iraq for several months, said his brother, Brad Shull of Bothell. “James was such a loving person. He wanted to create good in this world and really cared about all people.”
Ray Linford said that when he moved into the Kingsgate area of this Seattle suburb 20 years ago, James Shull was a neighbor boy, just
12 years old. Linford needed some pine trees removed from his yard and the Shull family down the street offered to take them. In less than two hours, James had dug up six trees, all of them two and three times his size. James hauled them back to his house. Years later, Linford said he hired Shull to stock supplies at his computer business.
Shull graduated from Juanita High School in 1989 and went on to serve a two-year Mormon mission in the Philippines. He returned and attended Washington State University, where he met his future bride. He majored in criminal justice, hoping to become a police officer, his brother said. Following that path, he joined the Army in 1996 and became a military policeman. He went on to officer candidate school and changed his specialty to artillery, his brother said. He most recently was stationed at Fort Riley, Kan.
Brad said his brother loved the military and often sent e-mails to his family saying he was safe and seldom heard gunshots. But his last e-mail, on Nov. 15, had a more dire tone. “He said he’d been moved to a scary part of Baghdad and asked us to pray for him,” said Brad Shull. James Shull was survived by his wife, Alice; his three children, Ashley, 7, Jacob, 5, and Alisa, 1; parents Joseph and Sandy Shull; a sister and four brothers.