Army Pfc. Damian L. Heidelberg

Died November 15, 2003 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

21, of Batesville, Miss.; assigned to 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.; killed Nov. 15 when two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters crashed in Mosul, Iraq.

---

In their last conversation before Pfc. Damian L. Heidelberg left for Iraq, his childhood friend Jerry Jones Jr. told him not to go and get himself killed. "He just told me that he was trying to make something of himself," Jones said. "He was trying to make it for his family and his baby." The 21-year-old administrative specialist from Shubuta, Miss., was killed Nov. 15 when two Black Hawk helicopters collided in Iraq. He was based at Fort Campbell, Ky. Heidelberg, a former choir member and church usher, was "a wonderful young man, sweet and mild-mannered," said Phyllis Heidelberg, his aunt. "He was slow to speak, loved to go to church and always had a big smile." Jones said the two were inseparable as children. "That was my boy," Jones said of his life-long friend. "If he got in trouble, I got in trouble. We were always in it together." Heidelberg is survived by his father, Grady Jones, his mother, Deborah Heidelberg, and a 2-year-old daughter, Stacie.

— Associated Press