Inverness soldier killed in Iraq

Jake Robert Velloza, an Army soldier from Inverness, asked his friends last Monday for their home addresses so he could send out wedding announcements.

“If you want a wedding announcement, either send me or Danielle your information in a message. Thanks,” the 22-year-old infantry man wrote on his Facebook page.

Five days later, he was dead. Velloza was killed Saturday in Mosul, Iraq, relatives said.

The soldier’s parents, Bob and Susan Velloza, received notification of their son’s death early Sunday from an Army major from Travis Air Force Base who came to their Inverness home, said the grandfather, Richard Velloza.

A Tomales High School football and baseball star, Velloza was popular on and off the sports field, Tomales High football coach Leon Feliciano said.

“I just remember he was an easy-go-lucky kid and everybody liked him, especially his peers,” Feliciano said. “He was a true friend and always backed up his friends.”

He joined the Army in 2006, his grandfather told the Marin Independent Journal. He served as a forward observer, directing the fire from artillery and other long-distance sources by visually observing the target.

Velloza was one of two soldiers killed when a lone gunman opened fire on a group of Americans in Mosul, a Sunni insurgent stronghold north of Baghdad, Richard Velloza said.

The Associated Press reported that an Iraqi soldier opened fire on a U.S. military team Saturday, killing two American soldiers and wounding three. The attack sharpened worries about the extent of militant infiltration in Iraq’s security forces, military officials said.

Iraqi officials described the attacker, who was killed in the gun battle, as a soldier who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for his unit near Mosul.

The Pentagon had not issued an official notice of Velloza’s death on Monday.

Velloza played running back and defensive end for the Braves and was a member of the 2002 North Coast Section Class B championship team when he was a junior, Feliciano said.

“He was about 6’1, 185 pounds and naturally strong,” Feliciano said. “I remember him telling me his freshman year he was going to go into the military. I thought he might want to go to JC and see if he could play there.”

Feliciano said Velloza could have run track if the school had a team.

“He was fast, legitimate quick,” he said. “He was one of the fastest kids I’ve seen at Tomales.”

That speed also served him well on the school’s baseball team, said coach Bill Tucker.

“He could fly and cover a lot of ground in center,” Tucker said, adding that Velloza was “very popular and easy going and made friends easily.”

“I’ll always remember on a bridge near Nicasio, there was a sign ‘Welcome Home Jake’ after his first tour in Iraq. Then he re-upped,” Tucker said.

Velloza wrote about the Army when he described himself on his Facebook page: “I’m currently in Iraq for my 2nd tour; I’ll be home sometime in Dec. I have the most amazing fiancee anyone could ask for. She gets me through my days and I can’t wait to come home to her,” Velloza said.

Friend Jeffrey Hickey said preparing for marriage had transformed Velloza, a guy’s guy who raided the fridge, played video games and loved being outdoors.

“He shared with me his hope and desire to one day fall in love. I realized this hope was at the very core of what made Jake so sweet and fun,” Hickey wrote in a letter to the local press Monday.

Of Velloza’s fiancee, who he named on Facebook as Danielle Erwin of Evansville, Ind., “it was obvious that Jake had found what he was looking for,” Hickey said. “It was also obvious how much he wanted to get home and be with her.”

You can reach Staff Writer Laura Norton at 521-5220 or laura.norton@ pressdemocrat.com. Rich Rupprecht and Guy Kovner contributed to this report.