Army Spc. Robert L. Voakes Jr.

Died June 4, 2011 Serving During Operation Enduring Freedom

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21, of L’Anse, Mich.; assigned to 793rd Military Police Battalion, 3rd Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; died at FOB Fenty, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered June 4 in Laghman province when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. Also killed were Sgt. Devin A. Snyder, Sgt. Joshua D. Powell and Sgt. Christopher R. Bell.

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Soldier, 21, from L’Anse killed in Afghanistan

The Associated Press

L’ANSE, Mich. — A soldier described as soft-spoken and polite by those who remembered him from his days growing up in the Upper Peninsula has been killed in Afghanistan.

Spc. Robert L. Voakes Jr., 21, of L’Anse was among four soldiers who died when insurgents attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device June 4 in Laghman province, the Defense Department said. They were assigned to a military police battalion from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

Voakes’ remains were returned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on June 6.

The 2009 Baraga High School graduate was “a very quiet, polite young man who went about his business,” principal Dennis Ruuspakka told The Mining Journal of Marquette. “He was very well liked by every teacher and by every student at the school.”

Bruce Rundman, a former basketball coach and the guidance counselor at Baraga High, remembered Voakes as having “had a real gentle presence and a quiet wit. Robert was really funny, but unfailingly polite.”

Rundman said Voakes provided him with one of the “best laughs of my coaching career. The JVs were scrimmaging the varsity, and it was shirts and skins. Robert looked at me and said, ‘Hey coach, when are you going to take your sweater vest off?’

“Robert wasn’t a class clown, but had a really great sense of humor.”