KVOA -- PHOENIX -- A 24-year-old Army tank crewman has become the seventh Mesa native to die in Iraq.
Spec. Douglas C. Desjardins was killed Sunday when an improvised explosive device exploded, the Department of Defense announced Tuesday.
Desjardins died in Ar Ramadi when the bomb went off next to his M1A1 Abrams tank. Desjardins was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, based in Giessen, Germany.
"He was glad to be there. He had his friends there. He knew he was doing something with his life," said Barbara Desjardins, his 46-year-old stepmother who is a Mesa Public Schools bus driver.
Barbara Desjardins said the Army was a good career choice for her stepson, that he'd become a good mechanic in the service and he could have landed a good job if he had survived the war.
"He was so proud he could take a tank apart and put it together," Desjardins said. "We were very proud of him."
Although Douglas Desjardins grew up in Mesa, he graduated from Scio (Ore.) High School, where his mother lived.
Craig Hamnquist, a teacher who mentored Desjardins, wrote in a eulogy on the school Web site that Desjardins struggled academically _ bouncing from the Mesa to the Scio school district and barely graduated in 2000.
"He got himself in gear and performed an amazing turnaround," Hamnquist wrote, after extensive pressure from his parents. "I'm sure that Doug knew he was liked, but I think in the last quarter, it amazed him how intensely people cared about him and his future."
Barbara Desjardins said her stepson, who she raised since he was 4, was a quiet kid who got involved in soccer, Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts to get out of his shell and lost much of his shyness as he reached high school. |