When NBC reporter David Bloom died Sunday while covering the war in Iraq, a Tooele family felt almost like they had lost a member of their family.
Just the day before Bloom's death, Sandy Vargas received a call on her birthday from her 26-year-old son, Jason, who is a member of the 2nd Battalion, 315th Mechanized Unit of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which Bloom had traveled with since the war began.
While the call itself was a shock to Sandy — Jason had not called since March 1, when he was still in Kuwait — he had another surprise for her.
"After all of her crying, she told him [Jason] that we watched David Bloom's reports, and my son said, 'He's right here. I'm using his phone,' " Robert Vargas, Jason's father, said.
Since the first hours of the war, Robert said that he and Sandy have watched NBC and MSNBC almost exclusively, primarily to catch any of Bloom's reports and to hopefully catch a glimpse of their son. Because of that, Bloom had become a big part of the couple's daily routine.
"When they were filming, Jason said he tried to sneak in," Robert said. "We thought we saw him (Jason) a couple of times."
Bloom died Sunday of a pulmonary embolism, according to an NBC News report. The 39-year-old Bloom, who was married with three children, is the second American journalist to die in the war.
Robert Vargas said when his son called on Bloom's phone, they were in a warehouse at Baghdad International Airport. NBC News reported that Bloom died just outside of Baghdad.
"When the war started, we flipped all over TV until we saw David Bloom with the 315," Robert Vargas said. "Then we just started watching him whenever we could."
Because Jason manages power generators for the 315th, he had befriended Bloom's cameraman while helping them set up for broadcast, Robert said.
"It was just a miracle that we talked to [Jason], then it was a tragedy when he (Bloom) died the next day," Robert said. "He had almost become like family."
E-MAIL: jloftin@desnews.com