DOB/DOD: May 17, 1944 (Stamford, CT) – January 29, 2005; 60 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married to Jack L. Heald [U.S. Army veteran] (1937-1996)
ENLISTMENT: January 4, 1974 [Air Force]
DISCHARGE DATE: March 1, 1981
FAMILY: Born to Edward W. (1915-1981) and Katherine E. Boyer Geis (1910-1970). One sister, Margaret Geis Wright (1949-). Two brothers, Eric R. (1945-2015) and John L. (1947-). One stepbrother, James A. Milliff (1944-2009). One stepsister, Marilyn R. Milliff Parkhurst (1941-1982).
CIRCUMSTANCES: Barbara Heald was killed on the eve of the Iraqi national elections when a mortar round crashed through the roof of the Republican National Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Also killed in the incident:
Navy Lieutenant Commander Keith E. Taylor; Irvine, CA
OTHER: Barbara Heald was a Department of Defense civilian employee who was a contract negotiator, working predominately in the oil sector. She served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force in the 1970s. After retiring from a career in government service, she volunteered three different times to go to Iraq to help in the country’s rebuilding. She is the namesake of the Barbara C. Heald Deployed Civilian Award. The award recognizes the professional whose outstanding contributions and achievements support the Army Contracting Enterprise and merits special recognition.
From The Hartford Courant on February 3, 2005
STAMFORD NATIVE KILLED IN BAGHDAD
A Stamford native who was working as a civilian employee for the U.S. Army in Iraq was killed in a mortar attack last weekend, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday. Barbara Heald, 60, died when a mortar hit the Republic National Palace in Baghdad on Saturday, the agency said. She had been working for the Project and Contracting Office, which is involved in rebuilding Iraq’s public works. Heald, of Falls Church, Virginia, volunteered to serve in Iraq after retiring from the Department of Agriculture, said her sister, Margaret Geis of Yuma, Arizona. “She had a very strong sense of patriotism,” Geis told The Sun of Yuma. “She had a tremendous curiosity. What she didn’t know when she got over there, she made it her business to find out.” A friend of five years remembered Heald as someone who headed to Iraq to help make history. “I was very surprised she was going there, but she really believed in trying to rebuild Iraq,” Gabriele Mecca of Odenton, Maryland, said Wednesday. “She felt reasonably safe in that environment, but everyone knew how dangerous it was. She wanted to be a part of history.” In a statement Wednesday, Governor Jodi Rell said, “Once again, we mourn someone from Connecticut who has paid the ultimate price to help bring freedom and democracy to the world. We honor her memory and rededicate ourselves to the ideals she served.”
From The Washington Post on April 1, 2005
By Rosalind S. Helderman
Honoring a Woman Who Returned to Serve
Ex-Captain Died in Iraq as a Civilian
Barbara C. Heald qualified twice over for the interment ceremony she received at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday.
Heald, 60, had served as a captain in the Air Force in the 1970s, and her husband, who died in 1996, served in the Army and was interred there. But for her family, the longtime Falls Church area resident deserved a place at the nation’s sacred military cemetery for a third reason as well: After retiring from a career in government service, she volunteered to go to Iraq to help in the country’s rebuilding, not once, but three times.
A civilian who worked for the Army’s Project and Contracting Office, Heald was killed on January 29, on the eve of the Iraqi national elections, when a mortar round crashed through the roof of the Republican National Palace in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Also killed in the attack was Navy Lieutenant Commander Keith E. Taylor, 47, of Irvine, Calif. The two were reportedly at their desks in makeshift offices in the ballroom of the palace, which serves as the U.S. Embassy.
Heald’s plaque at Arlington will bear the abbreviations KIA OIF- killed in action, Operation Iraqi Freedom- a rare distinction for a civilian.
“We believe she deserved that, given how she died,” said Margaret Geis, Heald’s sister. “She was one of the good guys. She was trying to rebuild.”
Heald was honored by the Air Force yesterday, with a line of airmen in their deep blue uniforms winding along the cemetery’s paths ahead of the caisson bearing her remains. She worked for the Army in Iraq, however, and she was embraced by that service as well. Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey attended the ceremony under a slate gray sky and within sight of the Pentagon.
“People should know how and why our sister fell in the nation’s service,” said her brother John Geis, who said she has been honored as well as any fallen soldier.
Heald, a Stamford, Connecticut native, had lived in the Washington area since 1987 and worked as a contract negotiator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She took early retirement, traveling the world and spending time at a home in the Shenandoah Valley. There, she met Gabriele Mecca, who yesterday remembered Heald’s adventurous and playful spirit. The two became close during a church trip to Ireland, where Mecca recalled that her friend was unfailingly curious.
Heald decided to come out of retirement when she realized that her skills could be useful in Iraq, Mecca said. She arrived for her first tour in 2003 and had just returned to Iraq from a break in early January.
“I think she’s an inspiration to people who are older, who have retired, but who still have so much to give in terms of knowledge and wisdom and education,” Mecca said.
Heald’s sister said she believed deeply in her mission in Iraq and became close to civilians there. One Iraqi translator invited Heald to have dinner at his Baghdad home. Later, she spent a week with his family in Jordan after he left the country to escape death threats.
“For her to be invited to stay in their home for that much time, there was so much mutual respect there,” said Geis, who lives in Yuma, Ariz.
Heald also became close to her American co-workers. In lieu of flowers, her family asked friends to donate to a scholarship fund set up for Taylor’s children. Heald is survived by three grown stepchildren and three siblings.
In Iraq, Heald maintained her good humor even as she worked long days and weeks, her sister said. Geis said Heald was never the strongest swimmer, but she e-mailed a picture of herself performing her first-ever dive from a high board- into Saddam Hussein’s swimming pool.
An avid knitter, Heald also sent a photo of herself in front of a famous statue in Baghdad, clad in a floppy desert hat and a thick bulletproof vest and holding up a copy of Knitter’s Magazine.
Her love of the craft was so profound that her sister said the family decided to inter a ball of yarn and knitting needles along with her ashes. “That way,” Geis said, “she’ll have something to do.”
The U.S. flag is folded over the remains of Barbara C. Heald of the Falls Church area, a retired Air Force captain who died while serving as a civilian in Baghdad. Margaret Geis receives the flag in honor of her sister at the interment ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery.
From FallenHeroesMemorial.com
“I was Barbara’s roommate at Officer Training School OTS at Medina AFB, TX, from January 1974 to our Commissioning on 2 April 1974. I was also stationed with her at Squadron Officer School at Maxwell AFB, AL, from September to December 1976. We were both 1Lts [First Lieutenants]. I was so sorry to hear about her death, but I knew that she was serving her country. I am proud to have known Barbara. My husband was also at OTS with Barbara. Our son, a West Point graduate, was KIA on 31 Oct. 2003 in Iraq. I know the pain her family is suffering. In April 2006, I will be attending the Women Officer’s Association conference in TX., and Barbara will be remembered.”
— Linda L. Bryant of Riverside, CA
“I had the honor of working closely with Barbara at the Army Project and Contracting Office in Baghdad in the summer of 2004. I was the director of facilities & life support, and Barbara worked in the contracting office. We ate lunch together regularly in the Republican Presidential Palace cafeteria. Barbara had a great sense of humor and managed to keep a positive attitude in a hellish place. She was an expert contracting officer and kept me on the straight & narrow through several procurement actions. What a classy, wonderful lady!”
— Lieutenant Colonel Richard E. Lawrence, Jr.
I knew Barbara in Iraq. I was the network manager at the Baghdad Convention Center and saw Barbara every day from October 2003 until January 2004. What a lovely woman! Barbara was killed after I left, yet I can’t recall who gave me that sad news. Finally, after all these years later, I find this site where I can say a few kind words about this sweet and very charming, energetic woman… We all loved Barbara… She could light up a room with her smile and her warmth… God bless you always, Barbara.
— Giovanni
Barbara Heald is inurned in Arlington National Cemetery, 1 Memorial Avenue, Arlington, Virginia; Columbarium Court 4-K, Column 10, Niche 3.
