Army Sgt. 1st Class Clarence D. McSwain

Died June 8, 2006 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

---

31, of Meridian, Miss.; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.; died June 8 of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his convoy vehicle during combat operations in Baghdad.

* * * * *

Meridian soldier was ‘one of the good guys’

By Holbrook Mohr

Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. — Army Sgt. 1st Class Clarence D. McSwain of Meridian was a proud soldier on his third tour in Iraq when he was killed last week, a family member said on Monday.

The 31-year-old McSwain died in Baghdad last Thursday when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy, the Department of Defense said.

He had met his 4-month-old son only once, his sister, Ashley McSwain, told The Associated Press during a telephone interview on Monday.

“He loved his family so hard. Nothing came before his family,” Ashley McSwain said. “He made his presence known all over the place because he didn’t mind sharing what he had. It’s just bad that the world had to lose him because he was one of the good guys.”

McSwain believed he was protecting his family and his country by serving in the Middle East, Ashley McSwain said. This was his fifth overseas deployment in his 12-year military career.

“My brother felt strongly about God and having family and knowing that his family was OK. He would protect anybody he could,” Ashley McSwain said.

McSwain deployed to Iraq in September and had his met his young son, Kenneth, while on leave shortly after the baby’s birth, she said.

Besides the infant son, McSwain leaves behind a wife, Kendrah, and two daughters, Jasmin and Krista.

McSwain played high school football and was an honor student at Meridian High School before graduating in 1993 and majoring in English at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Ashley McSwain said her father, Theodis, a minister at Gilfield Baptist Church in Phusmatha, Ala., and the preacher’s wife, Sandra, declined Monday to give an interview.

McSwain was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division based out of Fort Campbell, Ky.

Funeral arrangements were incomplete on Monday.

McSwain is at least the 43rd soldier from Mississippi, or with strong ties to the state, to have died in Iraq, according to an AP count. One has died in Afghanistan.

Including McSwain, 151 soldiers from Fort Campbell have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003. The sprawling Army base straddles the Kentucky-Tennessee border.