Skip to content

Navy commander from Pa. dies in Baghdad bomb blast

HARRISBURG - A Navy commander who volunteered for a six-month tour of duty in Iraq was killed less than a month before he was to return home to Pennsylvania, Navy officials said yesterday.

HARRISBURG - A Navy commander who volunteered for a six-month tour of duty in Iraq was killed less than a month before he was to return home to Pennsylvania, Navy officials said yesterday.

Cmdr. Philip A. Murphy-Sweet, 42, of the Harrisburg suburb Mechanicsburg, was riding in a vehicle that struck a roadside bomb Saturday in Baghdad, officials said. Murphy-Sweet spent 16 years in the Navy and had been stationed at the Naval Inventory Control Point in Mechanicsburg since December 2004. He was the installation's first officer to be killed in Iraq, said his commanding officer, Rear Adm. Michael S. Roesner.

Murphy-Sweet went to Iraq in November and was serving as a contracting officer supporting coalition troops, Roesner said.

Born in Phoenix, Murphy-Sweet became a commissioned officer after he graduated from the University of Idaho in 1991. He was promoted to commander in June. He is survived by his wife, Cheryl, two daughters, and a son.- AP