Zachary Wade McBride was born on October 16, 1987, in Manhattan, New York County, New York. He was the son of Marshall and Laurie McBride. He joined the U.S. Army shortly after graduating from Mountain View High School in 2005. Despite scoring high enough on Army aptitude tests to pursue an officer track, he chose instead to serve as an enlisted soldier. He served as a Sergeant and an Infantryman with Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3d Squadron, 2d Stryker Cavalry Regiment, stationed in Vilseck, Germany, and later deployed to Iraq.

On January 9, 2008, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Sgt McBride was killed in action while participating in a search operation in Sinsil, Diyala Province, approximately sixty miles north of Baghdad. He and his team entered a house that had been cleared of hazards two weeks earlier, unaware that insurgents had since returned and rigged the structure with explosives. A pressure-activated improvised explosive device detonated inside the building, killing McBride along with five other soldiers. He is now buried in the Willamette National Cemetery, Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, memorial.2dcavalryassociation.com, thefallen.militarytimes.com