Army Spc. Jeremy O. Allmon

Died February 6, 2005 Serving During Operation Iraqi Freedom

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22, of Cleburne, Texas; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; killed Feb. 6 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle in Taji, Iraq.

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North Texas soldier killed in Iraq

Associated Press

FORT HOOD, Texas — A North Texas soldier was killed during the weekend when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle, the Defense Department announced Tuesday.

Spc. Jeremy O. Allmon, 22, of Cleburne, died Sunday in the Iraqi city of Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad.

He was driving an M-1 Abrams tank when the improvised device detonated, officials at Fort Hood said Tuesday.

“He loved his family, and he loved his country,” Preston Wade Ray, Allmon’s father, told the Cleburne Times-Review for its Tuesday edition. “He was supposed to get out in a month, and he had job offers already for security.”

The soldier told the newspaper late in 2004 that he believed the United States was right to invade Iraq and to stay until that nation was back on its feet.

“We can’t just leave,” he said during a home visit while on leave. “We can’t just start something and not finish it. Then we wouldn’t be America.”

Two other soldiers were hospitalized for injuries they suffered in the blast, according to a U.S. Central Command casualty report.

Allmon was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood.

He enlisted in the Army in April 2002, and had been based at the Central Texas post since September 2002.

He is at least the 138th Texan to have died in the Iraq War since it began in March 2003, and the 19th reported fatality this year.