Army Spc. Clay P. Farr

Died February 26, 2006 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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21, of Bakersfield, Calif.; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.; killed Feb. 26 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during patrol operations in Baghdad. Also killed was Spc. Joshua U. Humble.

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Two Fort Drum soldiers killed by roadside bomb in Iraq

FORT DRUM, N.Y. — Two soldiers from Fort Drum were killed in Iraq when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol vehicle, the military said Wednesday.

Spc. Clay Farr, 21, of Bakersfield, Calif., and Spc. Joshua Humble, 21, of Appleton, Maine, died Sunday in Baghdad, according to the Defense Department.

The cavalry scouts were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. They both joined the Army in January 2004 and deployed to Iraq in August, Fort Drum said in a statement.

Shortly after Farr enlisted, his 16-year-old fiancee was killed in a car accident. That didn’t stop him from delaying his training, his family said.

“He loved defending his country. He was very patriotic,” his father Patrick Farr told The Bakersfield Californian. “When the war first started, he was in high school. If I would have let him enlist at that age, and the Army would have taken him, he would have gone right then.”

Farr graduated in 2003 from Centennial High School in Bakersfield. Although he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a casket of mementos will be buried next to his fiancee.

“He would not have been happy doing something behind the lines. He’s the type that wanted to be right out in the action,” his mother Carrol Alderete told the newspaper.

Humble attended Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport, Maine, from 1999 to 2002, a school official said. He is survived by his parents, a brother and a sister.

His family referred media calls to Maj. Michael Backus, a public affairs officer for the Maine National Guard, who had no additional information about Humble.

“My thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of Joshua Humble, who died serving his country in Iraq,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. “We cannot adequately express our gratitude for his sacrifice and that of his family, but his courage will forever be remembered.”

Rep. Tom Allen, also expressed sympathy to Humble’s family.

“His death during the recent upsurge in violence puts a Maine face on the chaos and imminent danger that our troops and the Iraqi people experience on a daily basis,” he said.

— Associated Press