Army Sgt. 1st Class Neil A. Prince

Died June 11, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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35, of Baltimore; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.; killed June 11 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle in Taqaddum, Iraq. Also killed was Spc. Casey Byers.

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Baltimore soldier killed in Iraq

Associated Press

BALTIMORE — A Baltimore soldier was one of two troops killed last week in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy, the Department of Defense announced late Monday.

Sgt. 1st Class Neil A. Prince, 35, of Baltimore, and Spc. Casey Byers, 22, of Schleswig, Iowa, died June 11 in Taqaddum, Iraq, the Pentagon said.

Prince was assigned to the Army’s 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Fort Carson, Colo.

“It was a very unfortunate set of events” that led to Prince being in the convoy that was attacked, according to Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood, public affairs officer for the Iowa National Guard. Prince needed to travel to another city in Iraq and was being transported with the convoy when it encountered several improvised bombs, Hapgood said Monday night. One bomb detonated directly under Prince’s vehicle.

Hapgood said the convoy was moving equipment and soldiers when the first bomb went off, but that explosion didn’t injure anyone. The convoy stopped to secure the area, to search for insurgents and find out if they had other bombs when a second one exploded.

“Eventually, a third improvised explosive device, apparently quite powerful, detonated directly under an unarmored Humvee and destroyed the vehicle and killed both soldiers,” Hapgood said.

Neil Armstrong Prince — his parents named him after the first astronaut to walk on the moon — was born in Jamaica and moved with his family to Baltimore when he was 10, The (Baltimore) Sun reported. His parents, Cecil and Olive Bailey, now live in Harford County.

Prince enlisted right after graduating from City College. He met his wife, Suzette, while she was working as an Army medic.

“He loved being a soldier,” Mrs. Prince told The Sun. “I tried to get him to leave, but he always said that’s his job.”

Mrs. Prince and the couple’s 4-year-old son, Jordan, live with the sergeant’s parents.

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Baltimore soldier killed in Iraq laid to rest

BALTIMORE — Sgt. 1st Class Neil Armstrong Prince, a native of Jamaica who grew up in Baltimore, was buried Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery, 11 days after being killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

“I could put him in charge of anything and he could handle the mission,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Dwight Morrisey, Prince’s former first sergeant at Fort Hood, Texas. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually in charge of that convoy someday.”

Prince, 35, died June 11 in Taqaddum, Iraq.

After a 21-gun salute, soldiers handed American flags to his father, Cecil Prince, and his widow, the former Suzette McLeod, who held their 4-year-old son on her lap.

“You hear about soldiers dying every day and you feel bad, but you’re so far removed until it hits you yourself,” Prince’s youngest sister, Shane Prince, 32, told The Washington Post.

Prince joined the Army after graduating from City College in 1989. As a chief fire control sergeant in the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Prince arranged the transportation of weapons to troops in combat, Morrisey said.

“He is like the brains of the artillery,” Morrisey said. If military units needed firepower, “He was the one that would send it.”

Earlier Tuesday, during a service at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Staff Sgt. Keith Gavin said Prince was on a path to becoming a great military leader.

“He loved training troops,” Gavin told The (Baltimore) Sun after the service. Gavin had befriended Prince while both were at Fort Hood in 1999. “He was direct and fair.”

The service at the Main Post Chapel at Aberdeen Proving Ground is believed to be the first at the proving ground for a soldier killed during the war in Iraq, The Sun reported. Base officials could not recall the previous funeral there for an active-duty soldier.

“We seldom ever have a funeral here (because) we have such a small contingent of active-duty soldiers,” said Patricia McClung, a spokeswoman at the proving ground.

Suzette Prince, 31, a nurse at Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic at APG, said she met her husband as an Army medic. She spoke of him as a man who adored their son, Jordan.

“Number one, he loved his son,” she said after the service in Aberdeen. “He wanted everything for his son.”

She and Jordan are living with the sergeant’s parents in Forest Hill in Harford County.

Prince will be awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart posthumously, a cemetery spokeswoman said.

— Associated Press