Army Capt. Donnie R. Belser Jr.

Died February 10, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

28, of Anniston, Ala.; a member of the 524th Transition Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas, he was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division and attached to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team with the 1st Cavalry Division; died Feb. 10 in Baqubah, Iraq, of wounds sustained when his unit came in contact with the enemy using small-arms fire during combat operations.

---

Soldier from Anniston killed in Iraq

The Associated Press

ANNISTON, Ala. — An Army captain from Anniston was killed by enemy fire over the weekend in Iraq.

Capt. Donnie R. Belser Jr., 28, died from gunshot wounds Saturday in Baqubah, north of Baghdad, after enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire during combat operations, the Defense Department said Monday.

Belser graduated from Saks High in 1997 and earned a bachelor’s degree from Jacksonville State University in 2001.

He was a member of the 524th Transition Team, 1st Infantry Division, at Fort Riley, Kan. A man who answered the phone Tuesday at Belser’s home in Manhattan, Kan., referred a call seeking comment to the Public Affairs Office at Fort Riley. A brief statement from the base had no additional information.

Friends remembered him as upbeat and kind.

“He was a very intelligent and outgoing person,” Jerrod Brown told The Anniston Star in a story Tuesday. “He was just an overall good person.”

Brown, of Jacksonville, said he played tenor saxophone beside Belser in high school band and the two had kept in touch.