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- The People Behind The Sacrifice
Army Sgt. Clarence L. Floyd Jr.
Died December 10, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom
28, of Newark, N.J.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky.; killed Dec. 10 when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using small-arms fire during combat operations in Taji, Iraq.
Soldier with N.J. ties killed in Iraq
Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. — A 101st Airborne Division soldier with close ties to New Jersey was killed by small arms fire Saturday in Taji, Iraq, when his unit was attacked by enemy forces, the Army said.
Sgt. Clarence L. Floyd Jr., 28, was a cannon crew member assigned to the 1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Campbell, Ky. His mother and stepfather, Valerie and James Kelly, live in Newark.
Floyd, a father of five, was killed in Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad. Family members said he was shot in the head by a sniper.
Floyd joined the Army in October 2003, after holding a succession of minimum-wage jobs in New York City, hoping to be able to better provide for his family, his parents told The Star-Ledger of Newark.
He was deployed to Iraq at the end of September.
“He didn’t go there because he wanted to go,” James Kelly said. “He went there because he had to go. If these kids had jobs and opportunity, they wouldn’t even enlist.”
Floyd was born and raised in Harlem. He earned his high school diploma while a member of the Job Corps, a federally administered education and job training program. While in the Job Corps, he assisted in relief operations in North Carolina following Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
He will be buried in Calverton National Cemetery in Suffolk County, N.Y.
Attempts to reach Floyd’s wife, Deidra, in Fort Campbell, Ky., on Monday were unsuccessful.
Floyd is one of three soldiers with the 101st Airborne killed in Iraq since Friday. The names of the other two soldiers were not released Monday evening, Fort Campbell spokeswoman Kelly Tyler said.
Counting the three soldiers’ deaths, 29 troops from Fort Campbell have been killed since the 101st Airborne returned to Iraq for a second yearlong tour starting in September.