Army Pvt. Carson J. Ramsey

Died October 10, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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22, of Winkelman, Ariz.; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; killed Oct. 10 when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle in Baghdad.

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Fort Hood soldier killed in Baghdad car bombing

By Sandy Yang

Associated Press

PHOENIX — A 22-year-old Army private who had survived a roadside bombing in Iraq just two months ago was killed in combat, his father and the Department of Defense said Monday.

Pvt. Carson J. Ramsey, who grew up near Mammoth, Ariz., had been in Iraq since March but had already been awarded a Silver Star for a rescue and two Purple Hearts for combat wounds suffered in separate incidents.

He was killed Sunday in Baghdad when a car bomb was detonated outside an east Baghdad market as a U.S. military convoy was passing by.

He was among at least 11 people killed in one of two nearly simultaneous car-bombings in Baghdad. The other happened near an east Baghdad police academy.

Ramsey was a member of the 1st Cavalry Division based at Fort Hood, Texas. He was trained as a gunner, and drove and loaded tanks.

His father, Cecil Ramsey, said Carson didn’t talk much about the incidents in which he was wounded previously.

He came home to visit in June.

“When he was here, I asked him if he was scared to go back, and he said he had to go back. He was doing what he wanted to do for his country,” said Cecil Ramsey.

In August, Pvt. Ramsey was in a Humvee that was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad. Shrapnel hit the right side of his face, his father said, but he went back to work after just three days.

Ramsey was supposed to return home in February to Mammoth, a rural community in southeastern Arizona. Coming back was on his mind, his father said.

Two days before his death, Ramsey left a phone message for his father to check on a Harley Davidson motorcycle he wanted to buy when he got home.

“Friday was the last time we heard from him,” Cecil Ramsey said.

Carson Ramsey was born in Tucson and graduated from high school in 2001 in the town of Kearny, about 85 miles southeast of Phoenix. Ramsey joined the Army right after graduation and thought of pursuing a career in the military, his father said.

Ramsey is survived by his father, mother, two sisters and a brother.