Army Pfc. Jonathan V. Hamm

Died May 17, 2007 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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20, of Baltimore; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.; died May 17 in Baghdad, of wounds sustained when his forward operating base received indirect enemy fire.

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Baltimore soldier killed in Baghdad

The Associated Press

BALTIMORE — A 20-year-old West Baltimore man whose mother died of cancer just before his deployment was killed in Iraq by indirect enemy fire, according to the Defense Department and his relatives.

Pfc. Jonathan V. Hamm’s aunt, Eleanor S. Swan, said he left for Kuwait 10 days after the funeral of his mother. Frances S. McCullough, 52, died in February from breast cancer.

His father died in 2000 of liver failure, which Swan said sent the boy into a destructive lifestyle for a time. Another aunt, retired city police officer Leah Hamm, told The (Baltimore) Sun he was caught in a “spiral of not going to class and hanging with the wrong people.”

But she said she had an advice-filled, challenging conversation with him. After that, “he took it upon himself to change his life,” she said. Family members said the young man known as “Hammie” or “Hamm” decided to join the Army. He failed the Army test once, but took it again and passed.

Hamm had been in Iraq for about a month when he died Thursday in Baghdad. Joseph Piek, an Army spokesman at Fort Lewis, Wash., said he was likely hit by mortar fire or an artillery round.

His uncle, Reginald Swan, a Vietnam War veteran, said, “He just wanted to make his life a little better because there was nothing out here for him but trouble.”

Hamm graduated from Carver Vocational-Technical High School in 2004.

Survivors include two older brothers, Tyrone “Skip” Smith and Robert McCullough, both of Salisbury.

A memorial service at Fort Lewis, where Hamm had been stationed since 2005, is planned for Thursday, Piek said.