>Baker City Herald | Baker County Oregon's News Leader

A special Veterans Day ceremony Tuesday in Salem will honor five soldiers killed while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan since May and their families.

The ceremony, which begins at 2 p.m. at the Oregon Veterans Building in Salem, also will pay tribute to all of Oregon’s fallen service members who have served in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, said Mike Allegre, Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs public affairs specialist.

Five names will be added to the more than 100 already inscribed on the Wall of Honor at the Afghan-Iraqi Memorial in Salem.

Among those to be honored is U.S. Army Cpl. Jessica Ellis, the daughter of Steve and Linda Ellis of Baker City. The 24-year-old combat medic was killed May 11. She served with the 101st Airborne stationed out of Fort Campbell, Ky.

The Veterans Day ceremony also will honor Sgt. James M. Treber, Pfc. Tan Q. Ngo, Lt. Col. James L. Wiley Jr. and Capt. Bruno G. de Solenni. Allegre provided this information about the fallen soldiers:

• U.S. Army Sgt. James M. Treber, 24, a green beret with Co. A, 1st Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, was killed on June 29 at Khosrow-E Soifla, Afghanistan. He was one of three soldiers who drowned when the vehicle in which they were traveling overturned in a canal while on night patrol.

Although he was a resident of Imperial Beach, Calif., he had spent time in Oregon. His father and stepmother, Gordon and Nicole Treber, live at Astoria, where he was a frequent visitor. His father was a retired 26-year Navy veteran.

Half of Treber’s cremains were interred in a memorial wall at Arlington National Cemetery and half were placed in an urn for his wife, whose name was not available.

Treber had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq during his time in the military.

• Pfc. Tan Q. Ngo, 20, of Beaverton, died Aug. 27 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was on patrol in a vehicle when the group he was with received small-arms fire and was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Ngo died of his burns from a fire during the attack. The son of Vietnamese refugees, his parents said he wanted to join the Army to protect his country after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

• Lt. Col. James L. Wiley Jr., 46, of North Bend, died of a gunshot wound on Sept. 18 at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. His death is under investigation.

Wiley was assigned to the 27th Brigade Combat Team with the New York Army National Guard. He had served a year in Afghanistan before his death.

Wiley was a 1979 North Bend High School graduate. He was on the high school’s state wrestling team and played on the football team. He was a judge advocate general and served as a chief legal officer in Kaiser Slautern, Germany with the U.S. Army.

After Wiley’s death, his wife, Teresa E. Wiley, who had lived in Germany, returned to North Bend with the couple’s three daughters, Jamie, 20; Ruth, 16; and Sarah, 14. His parents, Jim and Ruth Wiley, also live at North Bend along with his brother, Rick.

• Capt. Bruno G. de Solenni, 32, of Crescent City, Calif., had served in the Army Guard in Oregon for 12 years. He died on Sept. 20 at Kandahar, Afghanistan, from wounds caused when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. Two Afghani interpreters and two other soldiers also died in the incident.

de Solenni, a training team member in Afghanistan, was serving his third tour of duty. He’d previously served in Iraq and Egypt. He was deployed in January 2008 and was assigned to the Army National Guard in Oregon, 1st Battalion 186 Infantry at Ashland and Co. D in Grants Pass and Head Quarters Co. 1st Battalion 186, at Grants Pass. Shortly before he was deployed, he was assigned to the Headquarters Element Training Team in Salem.

He graduated from Del Norte High School at Crescent City, Calif., in 1994 and was a graduate of Southern Oregon University at Ashland.

He is survived by his mother, Cali Martin, his father, Mario de Solenni, his brother, Gino, and his twin brother, Ricardo, all of Crescent City; and a sister, Pia Conway of Philadelphia.