Frank Carvill, LC’75, National Guard Sergeant, Killed in Iraq in 2004; Honored Posthumously as a Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus

Sgt. Francis T. (Frank) Carvill (LC’75) of Carlstadt, NJ, 51, a member of the New Jersey National Guard serving in Iraq, was killed June 4, 2004, when his convoy was ambushed by a roadside explosive device in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad. He was one of five soldiers killed in that attack, during which three other New Jerseyans were wounded. 

In 2004 the Livingston Alumni Association of Rutgers University posthumously honored Carvill as a Livingston College Distinguished Alumnus.

Sgt. Carvill and the other soldier, Spc. Christopher Duffy, 26, were the first New Jersey National Guard servicemen to die in the Iraq war. The two men, from the 112th Field Artillery unit based in Lawrenceville, Mercer County, were part of Task Force Baghdad, made up primarily of elements of the Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division, said division spokesman Lt. Col. James Hutton. Two other New Jersey National Guardsmen were killed in a similar ambush the following day.

According to his sister, Peggy Ligouri, Carvill had survived both terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001. On September 11, 2001, he was working in the North Tower as a paralegal for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. He was helping a co-worker with a disability get into a van to go to a court appearance in Brooklyn when he saw the first plane hit the building.

Carvill was the second Livingston College alumnus killed in Iraq. Seth Dvorin (LC’02) was killed March 3, 2004.

• Star-Ledger coverage
  • Friend, Patriot, Good Man to All
  • Fallen Heroes
• New York Times coverage
• Associated Press coverage (via Newsday and Home News Tribune)