JUSTIN HEBERT
Memorial Wall
Silvana WA
Parents mourn after news of soldier's death in Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Olympian Online
Originally published Tuesday, August 5, 2003
• Operation Iraqi Freedom section
SILVANA -- Justin Hebert's parents signed the paperwork enlisting him in the Army because he was only 17 and couldn't join on his own.
Now, nearly three years later, they are mourning his death.
Hebert, a 20-year-old paratrooper with the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade, was killed in an attack on his convoy in Kirkuk, Iraq, on Friday. Three other soldiers were wounded.
"He was on patrol when his vehicle was struck by a rocket propelled grenade," an Army spokesman confirmed Monday.
The spokesman, who refused to give his name, said Hebert was a fire support specialist with the brigade, based at Camp Ederle, Italy.
Hebert's father, Bill Hebert, said the news came with a knock on the door from two soldiers.
"We hate to give you the bad news," he recalled they said, "but your son has been killed in action."
He was the first soldier from Snohomish County to die in Iraq, The Herald of Everett reported Sunday.
Chad Winterhalter, 20, had known Hebert since the fifth grade and played football with him. He said Hebert had a knack for making people laugh.
"There was nobody like him," Winterhalter told The Herald. "We had our childhood fights, but I could never stay mad at him, and when I'd run into him everything was fine. And when he grew up and wanted to go into the Army, I encouraged him to go for his goals."
Hebert was the 52nd soldier to die in combat in Iraq since President Bush declared major fighting over on May 1, The Herald reported.
So far, 167 soldiers have died in the Iraq war, 20 more than during the 1991 Gulf War.
Robin Hebert said her son joined the Army to get an education and see the world. He and a buddy, Brett Rickard, enlisted just after they graduated from Arlington High School in June 2001.
Hebert never told his parents he was taking the tests to qualify for the Army. He came home when he was ready to join and asked his parents to sign off on it because he was 17 and needed their signatures.
"We're worried, very worried and scared -- but very proud of him," Robin Hebert said in a March interview with The Herald.
He was stationed in Italy at the time, but told his mother he would be leaving soon for Iraq.
"He said he was going to the bad land, and I figured it would be Iraq," she said. "I knew he was going to be in it."
After the regular phone calls ceased, Robin Hebert remained anxious for any news involving her son. "I've been waking up to CNN and going to bed with CNN," she said in March.
Since Rickard and Hebert enlisted, yellow ribbons have hung from trees on Silvana's main drag. And in the front window of Willow and Jim's Country Cafe is a poster with the photos of the two.
Rickard, a paratrooper with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, served in Afghanistan fighting Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts in mountainous Hemand Province.