Army Pvt. Jeremy L. Drexler

Died May 2, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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23, of Topeka, Kan.; assigned to the 91st Engineer Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, from Fort Hood, Texas; killed May 2 when his convoy vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in Baghdad.

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Soldier from Topeka killed when convoy attacked in Baghdad

By Bill Draper

Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. — For Deborah Drexler, the moment she and husband Karl feared most since her son Jeremy was deployed to Iraq came on May 2: An Army major in full dress uniform, accompanied by a chaplain, was at the door of their Topeka home.

“Jeremy was trained to be a fighter and he died a fighter,” Deborah Drexler said. “He felt it was his duty.”

Pvt. Jeremy Drexler, 23, of Topeka, was killed May 2 when his convoy was attacked in Baghdad. Army Spc. Ervin Caradine Jr., 33, of Memphis, Tenn., also died in the attack when their vehicle was hit by a makeshift bomb.

Both were members of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 91st Engineer Battalion and were based at Fort Hood, Texas.

“Jeremy was the kindest fellow who ever lived,” Deborah Drexler said. “He was a very giving person, goodhearted. He would give the shirt off his back if it would help somebody. He was the finest young man you could ever meet.”

Drexler graduated from Washburn Rural High School in 1999, enlisting in the Army three years later. The school’s principal, Bill Edwards, said Drexler was an intelligent young man who “marched to the tune of a different drummer.”

“He was fearless,” Edwards said. “He was not afraid to stand up to somebody bigger than him if he felt he had been wronged.”

Edwards said Drexler didn’t dress like other students, wore his hair differently and occasionally got into trouble that resulted in a few visits to the principal’s office. But he also spent an hour each day at the middle school serving as a teacher’s aide in German class, Edwards said, and knew early on that he wanted to be in the military.

“Sometimes people would look at him and think he was unusual,” the principal said. “He surprised people by how caring and loyal he was.”

Deborah Drexler, whose father was a military chaplain, said her son knew she didn’t want him to go to Iraq, but he felt it was his duty. “He knew how much I loved him and cared for him and didn’t want him to go,” she said.

She said she last spoke with her son about a month before he died, when she sent a care package that included shampoo, soap and snacks. She encouraged others to send similar care packages to the troops.

“Jeremy hated it over there,” Deborah Drexler said. “The Iraqi people were being rude to him, and it was hot and uncomfortable for the soldiers. His main goal was to get in there and help people and try to make life more comfortable for them.”

The thought that one of her other sons might be sent to Iraq terrifies her. Kenneth Drexler, 20, who is married and has a baby daughter, serves in the Marine Corps; Timothy Drexler, 21, is in the Navy.

Under Pentagon policy, close family members of a soldier who has been killed in combat can avoid being sent into a hostile-fire area if they request to be reassigned.

“If they go, they go,” she said, “and I hope they make it home and not in a box like their brother.

“We’ve sacrificed enough.”