Bremerton family waits for word on missing G.I. in Iraq

By Ray Rivera
Seattle Times staff reporter

	LARRY STEAGALL / THE (BREMERTON) SUN Lita Vigil, of Bremerton, pauses Tuesday while talking about her son, Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, who has been missing since Sunday, when his boat capsized in the Tigris River near Mosul, Iraq.
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Rescuers continued to search the waters of the Tigris River near the northern Iraq city of Mosul yesterday for a missing Bremerton soldier and two helicopter pilots.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, 29, was one of four soldiers from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigade who were on a river patrol with Iraqi police when their boat capsized Sunday. Three of the soldiers made it to shore. In the ensuing search for Bunda, a Kiowa helicopter crashed into the river; its two Army pilots from Fort Drum, N.Y., have not been found.

U.S. Navy divers joined Army engineers and Iraqi police in the search yesterday.

"We're using every available asset we have at this time," said Air Force Capt. Dave Malakoff, a coalition spokesman in Baghdad.

In Bremerton, Bunda's family has been staying close to the telephone, praying he's still alive but fearing the worst.

"It's so hard, because you just don't know," said his wife, Michele Bunda.

She had the task of explaining their "poppa's" disappearance to the couple's two children: daughter, Chrizchele, 6, and son, Christian James, 3.

"I don't think they can really understand yet," Michele Bunda said. "When I told them, my daughter said, 'Why did the boat flip over?' and 'Why didn't he hold on to the boat?' "

The little girl also asked why her father didn't have a job like other fathers, like being a doctor, Michele Bunda said.

Christopher Bunda's mother and stepfather have kept their Asian grocery store in Bremerton open, trying to stay busy while they wait for news.

	Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, soldier on right, and an unidentified soldier are shown in a recent photograph with Iraqi children in Mosul, Iraq.

"Every time the phone rings, I'm scared," said Bunda's mother, Lita Vigil. "I'm scared they might tell me my son is gone."

Vigil began worrying Sunday when she saw CNN reports that a Stryker soldier was missing. "I jumped," she said. Friends told her not to worry, but at 3 a.m. Monday, her phone rang and an Army official delivered the news.

Bunda was born and raised in the Philippines. He moved to the United States in 1991 as a teenager to live with his mother. He graduated the next year from Bremerton's Olympic High School, his mother said.

He followed his stepfather, Thomas Vigil, into the Navy, but after a short stint switched to the Army, against his mother's wishes.

"I wanted him to stay in the Navy," Lita Vigil said. "It's safer. But he wanted to be in the action."

Bunda was a squad leader and a sniper in the Stryker brigade, which was deployed to Iraq in November. Before he left, he asked his mother to send Christmas care packages for his squad members who didn't have families. Lita Vigil dutifully complied, sending packages stuffed with cookies, popcorn, chocolate and other goodies to nine members of the unit.

According to The News Tribune of Tacoma, which has a reporter embedded with the Stryker unit, Bunda, three squad members and an interpreter jumped aboard an Iraqi police boat to search for insurgents who had fired mortar rounds at U.S. targets in Mosul.

The boat ran out of gas and drifted toward a power line, the newspaper reported. The soldiers ducked under the power line, but the boat got hung up and flipped over. The Stryker soldiers, four Iraqi policemen and an interpreter fell into the river. One policeman drowned and two others, along with Bunda, remain missing. Everyone else on board made it to shore, the newspaper reported.

The cause of the helicopter crash was being investigated, although military officials said they didn't think the craft had come under enemy fire.

The missing pilots were identified as: First Lt. Adam Mooney, 28, of Maryland; and Chief Warrant Officer Patrick Dorff, 32, of Minnesota.

Since deploying to Iraq, three Stryker soldiers have died, all when a pair of Stryker vehicles rolled into a canal Dec. 8.

Ray Rivera: 206-464-2926 or rayrivera@seattletimes.com

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