Joshua J., Skvor, Sgt., 22 Apr 1979 - 21 Sep 2004

SKVOR, CRAWFORD, BRANT

Posted By: Sarah Witte (email)
Date: 7/17/2019 at 13:34:14

An Iowa National Guard soldier who served in Iraq was killed Tuesday when the government pickup he was driving collided head-on with a semitrailer trailer near Amana.

Sgt. Joshua J. Skvor, 25, of Cedar Rapids, was driving his usual Tuesday morning route on his way to Camp Dodge to pick up and drop off parts and equipment. His pickup collided with a truck driven by Greg Wolter, 42, of South Amana, the Iowa National Guard reported.

Skvor was assigned to the Guard's Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 234th Signal Battalion, based in Cedar Rapids. Skvor served in Iraq, but after his younger brother, Jacob, was seriously injured in a traffic accident in Iowa, he returned from the Middle East last fall. The company returned from Iraq in May.

“We spent all that time in Iraq, we had a few people wounded, a few people get sick . . . but we didn’t lose anybody,” Capt. Kevin Randle of the 234th said. “To come home and lose somebody like that is just shocking.”

The accident occurred about 7 a.m., north of Amana on Highway 151, said Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood, spokesman for the Guard.

It was a familiar route, said Iowa National Guard Chief Michael Gorshe, of Denver, Iowa, who heads up the shop in which Skvor worked for nearly four years. “He’s done it a hundred times, same road, same route, same everything.” Gorshe said.

A 1997 Marion Linn-Mar High School graduate, Skvor enlisted in the Iowa National Guard in December 1997 and served as an automated logistical specialist. He deployed to Iraq with the 234th Signal Battalion in March 2003. Gorshe said for months Skvor “Pretty much ran the show” in the shop at the Armory on weekends as one of two guardsmen left behind while the troops served in Iraq.

The accident is under investigation by the Iowa State Patrol and the Iowa National Guard.

The Iowa State Patrol said the pickup was traveling south on Highway 151 and crossed the center line, colliding with the semi-trailer truck. Both vehicles were totaled in the crash, the patrol said, and Highway 151 was blocked off for several hours.

Gorshe described Skvor as extremely intelligent, easy going and quiet, with a quiet sense of humor. Skvor was looking forward to going to school to become a mechanic and move up into another position at work, Gorshe said. “Josh was just a great kid. He was a real hard worker and tried real hard to do the right thing at all times,” Gorshe said, adding that Skvor was well-like by a lot of people.

Survivors include his mother and father, Rachel Skvor and Joseph Skvor, brothers Jacob, Sam and Shane, Grandparents Leonard Skvor Sr., Evelyn & Howard Crawford, and Mike & Thelma Brant.

Published in The Gazette on September 22, 2004