The loss of four Joint Base Lewis-McChord Army aviators who died in a helicopter training accident Monday night reverberated around the country Wednesday as the Defense Department identified the victims and loved ones started telling their stories.

Capt. Anne Rockeman Montgomery went to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point because she wanted to represent the country she loved after spending much of her youth in Africa and Central America.

Chief Warrant Officer Lucas Daniel Sigfrid was a determined competitor who was expecting a child.

Chief Warrant Officer Shan Joseph Satterfield grew up in Alaska before pursuing an Army career that took him all over the world and twice to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

And Chief Warrant Officer Frank Buoniconti III kept growing his family at home even as he earned respect as a distinguished helicopter pilot with four combat deployments behind him.

The Army on Wednesday began its investigation into what caused two OH-58 Kiowa helicopters to crash on a clear night Monday. All four soldiers were pilots serving in the 4th Squadron, 6th Calvary Regiment of the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade. Montgomery also was a platoon leader.

The soldiers walked different paths before they took the controls of their helicopters this week and died together in a remote corner of the base in Thurston County.

ANNE MONTGOMERY

Montgomery, 25, listed North Dakota as her home state, but she grew up in distant countries such as Malawi and Mozambique. Her father, Kurt Rockeman, worked with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

That varied experience, coupled with her admiration for her World War II veteran grandfather, led Montgomery to a career in the Army and application to West Point, family members said.

"One of my strongest and earliest wishes has been to show the world how I see my country, a nation among nations with an intangible something that sets it apart, a country I have seen from afar as the best," she wrote in a portion of her application to the military academy.

She graduated from West Point in 2008 and became one of 13 female pilots in Lewis-McChord's aviation brigade.

She married a fellow Army helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Montgomery, last year and the couple seemed delighted with each other to their family members.

"She was the perfect other half of my son," her father-in-law, Levi Montgomery, wrote Wednesday. "She was what made him whole, in a way that so few people can truly enrich and be enriched by others. She lit his face in a way that I had never seen before."

Her family remained close despite the travels, and came to regard her as one of its "jewels," her cousin and her uncle said Wednesday.

"Everybody was proud of her," said cousin Joshua Rockeman, 16, of Grassy Butte, N.D. "She was somebody I looked up to."

Montgomery visited her family in North Dakota for Thanksgiving. Her career as an Army pilot seemed to fit her personality as an adventurous woman with a "zest for life," even if she had to overcome a slight fear of heights, her uncle said.

"Everything she did was all out, all guns blazing," said Keith Rockeman, 54.

Montgomery's parents are working as missionaries in Kenya, Keith Rockeman said. They've been in touch to mourn the pilot.

"I'm just so proud of my niece. We're going to miss her greatly."

LUCAS SIGFRID

Sigfrid, 32, joined the Army in May 2008 and was just beginning to expand his family in Thurston County, a cousin told the Minneapolis Star Tribune Wednesday.

"He's my cousin, and we were like best friends," Mark Duclos told the newspaper.

Duclos is expecting a child, just like his cousin was.

"We were just talking last week ... about if we're going to have boys and they would grow up like us. We were just hellions," Duclos said.

Sigfrid graduated from Champlin Park High School outside Minneapolis and attended St. Cloud State University before joining the Army.

His high school wrestling coach remembered him as a fighter.

"He was just one of those guys who kept coming, and he fought as hard as he could all the time," Bill Maresh told The Associated Press.

SHAN SATTERFIELD

Satterfield, whose first name is pronounced "Shawn," was a husband and father of two in Thurston County, the son of an Air Force pilot father who taught him to fly. His wife Sassa posted a Facebook message this week thanking friends and family members for their thoughts and prayers.

Online records indicate that Satterfield grew up in Anchorage and graduated in 1997 from Dimond High School in Anchorage.

He has an extensive military record dating to his enlistment in 1997. He was commissioned as a warrant officer in 2002, and has served in South Korea and at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Satterfield was assigned to Lewis-McChord in 2009. He deployed once to Iraq and once to Afghanistan.

FRANK BUONICONTI

Buoniconti, 36, was the most decorated soldier among the four aviators killed this week. He joined the Army in 1994, served at several bases around the country, and deployed a total of four times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Among other honors, he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and Meritorious Service Medal.

Family members said Buoniconti loved his home life. He married his high school sweetheart, Kryste, and had three children with her. They recently adopted a fourth child through a special-needs nonprofit group.

"He was a good husband and a good father, and is going to be missed dearly," his father, Frank Buoniconti Jr. of Colorado Springs told The Seattle Times. "We are grieving as well for the other three families that are suffering."

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/12/14/1945536/names-stories-of-jblm-helicopter.html#storylink=omni_popular#storylink=cpy