Journal Star -- PENDER — Lonnie Ford had a feeling that his soldier son wouldn’t be coming home.

He and his son, Spc. Joshua Ford, had talked on the phone from Iraq after Joshua had been home on leave.

“I went in to my wife (Joshua’s stepmother) and said, ’He’s not ever going to come home,“’ Ford said. “I honestly had a feeling.”

At a news conference Thursday morning at Pender Elementary School, Ford spoke about the death of his son.

Twenty-year-old Joshua Ford was killed Monday by a roadside bomb in south-central Iraq near An Numaniyah. The blast wounded another member of his Nebraska Army National Guard unit, Detachment 1 of the 189th Transportation Company.

That soldier, Spc. Benjamin Marksmeier of Beemer, suffered a serious leg injury and was sent to Germany for treatment.

About 20 members of the Ford family joined the soldier’s father on Thursday, clasping hands amid photos of Joshua. Also on display were art projects Joshua had completed during his school years.

Lonnie Ford said he was proud that Joshua had served his country, although surprised that his son wanted to join the military. Joshua was so enthusiastic about the National Guard that he enlisted while still in Pender High School and persuaded three friends to join with him.

His son was interested in art, computers and movies, Lonnie Ford said.

Nebraska funeral plans have not yet been made, but the 189th is planning to hold a memorial in Iraq on Friday.

The unit was activated in August and landed in Kuwait on Oct. 31.

Besides his father, Ford was survived by his fiancee, Michelle Frohlich of Pender; three sisters, Erin, Jessica and Shawn; grandmother, Ella Petersen of North Bend; and a nephew, William Dyer.

Knowing that one of Joshua’s best friends was at his side when he died gave his father some comfort.

“I know that at his death, they tried to do everything humanely possible for him,” Lonnie Ford said.