Army Pfc. Jeffrey L. Rice

Died July 19, 2012 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

24, of Troy, Ohio, ssigned to 20th Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade, Fort Hood, Texas; died July 19, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of unspecified causes.

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Mom: Ohio soldier was protector, fulfilling dream

By DAVID FONG, Troy Daily News
via The Associated Press

TROY, Ohio — Sandy Wheelock stared down at the tiny figure standing in front of her, clad from head-to-toe in a black ninja costume.

From behind the black ninja mask, with eyes beaming, came a muffled voice: "I checked everything out, Mom. Everything is OK."

"He would always wear that little ninja costume with a wooden spoon tucked in his belt because I didn't like guns," Wheelock said. "He would play outside and when he would come in, he would tell me, 'I checked everything out, Mom. Everything is OK.' He was always worried about protecting me. His whole life, that's how he was — he was always worried about protecting his mom and his sisters."

That was more than 15 years ago, when Jeffrey Rice was a young man growing up in Troy. On July 19, Army Private First Class Rice, 24, lost his life while serving in Afghanistan as a part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Early Sunday morning, Wheelock was at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to greet her son's body as it arrived from the Middle East. Funeral services still are pending, and the United States Department of Defense has yet to reveal any details regarding his death.

"All they will say is that they still have to do the investigation and the autopsy," Wheelock said. "I really don't know any details — and I don't think I want to know any details."

While details of his death may be unknown, those who knew Rice best are willing to offer plenty of details about his life. His mother remembers him as a voracious eater who would devour her homemade Rice Krispie treats by the pan and consume packages of Ramen noodles by the half-dozen. She said he "loved fishing, looking at the stars through this big telescope he had and drinking beer."

Much more than any of that, however, the people in his life — particularly the women in his life, his mother, aunt, sisters and nieces — remember him as someone who always put family first and looked to protect his loved ones.

Even while stationed in Afghanistan, Rice would frequently call and write to check up on his nieces, Ali, Kristen and Makayla. Rice also grew up loving football. He played his first two years in high school and, entering his junior season in the fall of 2005, the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Rice appeared ready to assume a starting role along the offensive line for a powerhouse Troy team that had just been to the playoffs the year before.

Just before the season started, however, Rice gave it all up to help take care of his family. Rice's father, Bruce, had suffered a stroke in 2003.

He never recovered from the stroke, and Rice quit football to help take care of his ailing father, who passed away in 2007.

His junior year, Rice, a Troy High School student, began taking classes in Piqua at the Upper Valley Joint Vocational School, which has since been renamed the Upper Valley Career Center. He studied welding, which his mother said seemed a natural fit.

"He was always taking things apart," Wheelock said. "I would come home and there would be parts left over from what he had taken apart. I'd find pieces and parts that didn't go with anything."

His welding skills were enough to earn him a scholarship to the Hobart School of Welding following his high school graduation in 2007, but by then he already had decided to pursue his lifelong dream of entering the military.

Following graduation, Rice worked briefly at Speedway, the Troy Bowl and for his aunt's FedEx business. On Sept. 22, 2008, Rice entered the Army.

Rice was assigned to the 20th Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade in Fort Hood, Texas. His natural curiosity for taking things apart and putting them back together, coupled with his welding background, served him well when he was shipped to Afghanistan in January 2010.

Rice served as a field engineer in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

"If bridges were blown up or whatever, he would rebuild them," Wheelock said. "It was a dangerous job."

Wheelock knew her son was putting his life in danger and feared for his safety. Rice, however, always was quick to try to put his mother at ease.

"He was so proud of what he was doing," Wheelock said. "I knew that's what he wanted to do. On the inside, I didn't want him to go, but I wasn't going to stand in his way."

Rice would spend nearly two years in Afghanistan before returning home in December 2010, just in time for the holidays. He immediately wanted to return to the Middle East, but, as usual, was concerned about his mother, particularly following his father's death several years earlier. Once he got the green light from his mother, though, he signed up for another tour of duty.

In February of this year, Rice was again deployed to Afghanistan. Every chance he got, he would call or email his mother to let her know how he was doing.

This past Thursday, Wheelock was greeted at her front door by a pair of Army officials who let her know her son had died while in Afghanistan.

"I didn't open the front door right away, because I thought, 'Nobody ever rings the doorbell here; they always just come in through the garage,'" Wheelock said. "It was like a movie."

As she sat at her kitchen table Monday morning recounting her son's life, she read over an email he had sent her. Tears filled her eyes as she read the email. It would be the last one she ever received from her son.

The closing read: "one last thing i really really miss you and i love you mom. write you soon"