Rebecca Anna Lee Dorsey Williams
August 18, 2009
Jeanette A Bourgeois
August 20, 2009
A U.S. Army Green Beret who was from Houma and a Vandebilt Catholic High School graduate was killed on duty last week in Afghanistan.
Capt. John Tinsley, 28, died after a roadside bomb exploded close to the vehicle he was riding in.
Tinsley graduated from Vandebilt in 1998 where he had been enrolled since the eighth grade, said the school’s public relations director Lisa Vegas, who taught Tinsley in eighth grade.
The same year, he began attending Florida State University in Tallahassee where he joined the university’s Army ROTC program, graduating in 2002 with a degree in criminology.
Vegas said Tinsley was encouraged while at Florida State to become an ROTC member.
She said she has spoken with a classmate of Tinsley and his senior-year religion teacher who both remember him as always wearing a smile and being well liked by everyone.
“Those were his characteristics,” Vegas said. “They compelled him to do service for others. As a senior he was very excited about the annual Christmas service project where he could help others.”
Tinsley’s family moved to South Carolina or Virginia, Vegas said. His mother had been employed at Dillard’s in Southland Mall.
Tinsley’s last address, updated with Vandebilt in 2000, was in Jacksonville, Fla., she said, though the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported that he gave his hometown as Tallahassee.
His remains were flown to Dover, Del., on Friday, according to the newspaper.
Tinsley was with the Army 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, better known as the Green Berets, and was a Purple Heart recipient, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. He leaves behind a wife and daughter.
Vegas said some of Tinsley’s classmates contacted her about making donations to the Vandebilt endowment fund in his name.
Nine Tri-parish soldiers have died in the Middle East as a result of the U.S. invasion in that region, according to the U.S. Defense Department.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Capt. John Tinsley, a former Houma resident and Vandebilt Catholic High graduate, was killed by a bomb last week in Afghanistan.
