Brian Anthony Moss

Electronics Technician First Class, United States Navy.

The night before, he telephoned his mother in Sperry to tell her about the new job. After months of waiting he had been picked for the Chief of Naval Operations' office on the west side of the Pentagon.

He grew up at Sperry north of Tulsa, the son of a truck driver and a dietitian, and was of Cherokee descent. He finished top of his class, took a degree in business management, and worked for a Tulsa brokerage and then its Washington office - and found it was not enough. He told his father he was not content, that he wanted to be challenged, and enlisted in March 1990.

By that autumn he was at Adak in Alaska, where he met his wife Mary Lou. He volunteered for the submarine force because it was an elite one, trained at Groton, and served five years aboard the ballistic missile submarine Alabama with the Blue Crew - eight deterrent patrols. He gave up his Sailor of the Year board to be present when his son was born; he had missed his daughter's birth for training and would not miss another. They had two children, Ashten who was seven and Connor who was five.

He told a Navy paper in February: I have integrity and make sure I live by Navy core values. You can't talk the talk if you don't walk the walk. You can't be successful at something you are forced to do.

For three years he was with the United States Navy Ceremonial Guard, training the young guardsmen who represent the Navy to the world. He served at the 54th presidential inauguration, and he laid shipmates from the Cole to rest at Arlington.

In January he was chosen as Sailor of the Year for Naval District Washington - almost unheard of for a second class petty officer. He sat the advancement examination a week before he was killed. He passed. He was rated first class after his death.

His wife said: if he had to die, this is the way he would have wanted to go, serving his country.

His wife Mary Lou, his children Ashten and Connor, and his mother.