Army Pvt. Justin R. Yoemans

Died November 6, 2004 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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20, of Eufaula, Ala.; assigned to the 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery, Fort Hood, Texas; died Nov. 6 at the 31st Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad from wounds sustained earlier that day when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated near his up-armored Humvee in Baghdad.

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Alabama soldier killed in Iraq

Associated Press

EUFAULA, Ala. — A 20-year-old Eufaula man became the second Alabama soldier fatally injured in Iraq in less than a week when an explosive device went off near the Humvee in which he was riding in Baghdad, the Pentagon and his family said Monday.

Pvt. Justin R. Yoemans died Saturday at a military hospital about eight hours after being injured in the blast. Yoemans, who joined the Army less than a year ago, had been in Iraq since late August or early September, stepfather Mark Miller said in a telephone interview.

Yoemans loved to fish, hunt and write, and he played tuba in the high school band before entering the service. He spoke with his grandmother by telephone shortly before he went out on his last patrol, according to Miller.

“He said, ‘Grandma, it’s really bad over here. There are civilians shooting at us and all,”’ he said. “He told her he’d call back the next day. According to the Army men, it was not long after he talked to his granny that this happened.”

Military officials told the family Yoemans was riding on the back of a Humvee as a gunner when the vehicle ran over an explosive device.

“The medical people tried to save him and performed surgery,” Miller told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. “He gave his life for democracy in other parts of the world.”

Yoemans was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery based at Fort Hood, Texas. He quit Headland High School last year and earned his equivalency degree before going into the military, said his mother, Beverly Miller.

“He wanted to serve his country. He had dreams he’d get to see places he’d never seen before,” she said. “I tried to talk him out of it because I figured he’d get sent to Iraq. But he said it was his duty.”

“In a way it’s not going to sink in until we see the body come off the plane. It’s like we’re dreaming,” said the stepfather. “This war has sure enough hit home.”