 News4Jax.com -- JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A 22-year-old soldier born and raised in Jacksonville and serving with the Louisiana National Guard was killed Friday in western Baghdad when a roadside bomb struck the armored personnel carrier he was patrolling in.  The family of Sgt. Michael Scott Evans II wanted the world to know that he died proudly and willingly serving his country.
"When 9/11 happened, he knew what his calling was," his mother, Wynette Evans, said.
"He died doing what he was most proud of doing," his pregnant widow, 22-year-old Melissa Evans, told reporters gathered at the family home.
The bombing also killed two other members of the Louisiana Guard: Staff Sgt. Jonathan Reed, 25, of Krotz Springs, and Sgt. Christopher Ramsey, of Batchelor. Their deaths brought the number deaths in Iraq suffered by the Louisiana National Guard to 13.
No other state has lost more guardsmen in combat than Louisiana since the beginning of the war.
Michael Evans II joined the guard as a teenager and volunteered to go to Afghanistan. He had buddies killed there, but he did not waver. The military, his family said, was his path and he volunteered for Iraq.
His sister, who still lives in Jacksonville, said Michael Evans was in town for his 22nd birthday in early January during two weeks' leave. She said the funeral would be held in Jacksonville later this week, but specific arrangements were not available. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Michael Evans I, who served for about 17 years in the Navy, and his older brother, Davin, a staff sergeant with the Army's 540th Quartermaster Battalion.
In November, Evans was shipped to Iraq along with 4,000 soldiers attached to the Lafayette-based 256th Infantry Brigade. The guard says that his unit, the 1088th Engineer Battalion, had been working on building a medical clinic in the Saba Al Boor area of Baghdad, a Sunni stronghold.
Melissa Evans, who is 5 months pregnant, remembered her husband as a fun-loving and caring man who would have made a great father for their unborn child, Michael Evans III.
Through tears, she remembered their last conversation by telephone: "He talked to the baby and he said he was going to be home soon and take care of us." |
Shannon Dufrene