www.ajc.com -- A 25-year-old soldier from Jesup, Ga., serving his second tour in Iraq, died the day after Christmas while on patrol in Baghdad.
Sgt. Dominic R. Coles was the gunner on a wheeled armored personnel carrier that was attacked by an enemy force using guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, said Mike Alley, spokesman at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri where Coles was attached to the 5th Engineer Battalion.
Coles died in a grenade explosion. None of the other soldiers with Coles was injured. His unit had been in Iraq two months.
Alley said Coles had been in the Army six years. He was previously assigned to units in Germany and Fort Hood in Texas. He is survived by a wife and three stepchildren, Alley said.
Services will be at Fort Leonard Wood and in Jesup, according to the Royal Funeral Home in Jesup.
Coles is the 39th Georgian to die in Operation Iraqi Freedom this year.