The Mercury News -- HEMET - A 1984 graduate of Hemet High School who found his calling as a pilot is the fifth from the school to die in Iraq since 2004.

Chief Warrant Officer Keith Yoakum, 41, a U.S. Army pilot, was killed Friday in Taji, Iraq, after succumbing to injuries he suffered when the Apache helicopter he was in was forced to land during combat operations, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Defense.

A fellow soldier in the helicopter, Chief Warrant Officer Jason G. Defrenn, 34, of Barnwell, S.C., also was killed, the statement said.

Both soldiers were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Cavalry Regiment, 1st Division, in Fort Hood, Texas. The incident is under investigation, the statement said.

"We're saddened by the loss of another Hemet High grad," said Principal Bill Black, who said the death of another alumnus is shocking news for the school.

Four other graduates have been killed while serving in Iraq in the past two years.



"It leaves us speechless," Black said. "It's an awful lot for a small community ... it's more than our fair share."

Friends of Yoakum, who moved to Alabama with his wife, Kelly, and their two children, a few years ago, remember the fallen soldier as someone whose goal was to fly.

"He was a good friend, a very likable person," said Jim Duran, 40, of Hemet, who was Yoakum's classmate during junior and high school. "You don't ever think of something like that happening to anybody that close to you."

Duran, a transmission technician at Rancho Ford in Temecula, said he and Yoakum shared an interest in auto mechanics.

Shortly after high school, he said, Yoakum talked to him about joining the military.

Yoakum's fraternal twin, Kevin, recently retired from the U.S. Army, said Duran's wife, Dina.

Jim Duran, who said Yoakum kept in touch with him over the years and took him and his wife on a plane ride once, said his friend wanted to see the world.

"When he put his mind into something, he'd do it. He said he was going to be a pilot, and he did," Duran said.

Yoakum, who was restoring a 1946 Fairchild single-engine military trainer that is still kept at Hemet-Ryan Airport, learned to fly there and obtained his private pilot's license in the early 1980s, said Lloyd Cliff, of Hemet-Ryan Aviation.

Cliff, 60, of Hemet, said the company considered Yoakum "one of the Hemet-Ryan Family" and always kept track of him no matter where he was -- even in Iraq.

"He was one of those kids who all he wanted to do was fly," Cliff said. "It was his passion. He lived to fly."

Cliff said Yoakum not only flew military helicopters, but he was a certified instructor on several types.

"He was doing exactly what he wanted to do," Cliff said. "He will be missed."

Joe Riedell, 78, of Hemet, who friends said was Yoakum's mentor, gave him his first job at United Transmission on Florida Avenue. First, he was a pickup and delivery boy and then he worked his way up to transmission repair.

"He did not last long as a PUD. He had too much going for that," Riedell said.

From the shop, which was along the final approach path of the runway at Hemet-Ryan Airport, Yoakum would stop everything he was doing and run out to watch the planes -- every chance he got, Riedell said.

"I said ... 'Why don't you fly?' " he said. "He said 'I've been told I'm not bright enough.' I told him, 'if I can do it ... you can do it.' "

Yoakum soloed in a single-engine Cessna 150 at the airport in the mid-'80s.

"He spent all the money he made on flying and dreamed of being an aviator of some kind," Riedell said. "He cleaned yards. He did anything and everything to fly. He spent money that was not even cold yet."

Riedell said he and Yoakum were "buddies."The two spoke once a week and exchanged letters.

"If I ever had a son, I'd want him to be just like Keith," Riedell said. "He was the sunrise and sunset to me. If I had a thousand Keiths in this world, we could take care of everything."

He said the Yoakum family moved to Alabama and purchased 51 acres. His two brothers were finishing the landing strip there, where he planned to fly the Fairchild plane when he returned from the war.

Yoakum never got the chance.

"He believed in his country," Riedell said. "But he could not understand how people could strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up."

Black said Yoakum's name and picture will be added to the memorial plaque set up to honor alumni who died in Iraq.

The plaque hangs among historical U.S. documents in the Freedom Shrine on the second floor of the school's main classroom building.

Hemet Vice Mayor Lori Van Arsdale called Yoakum's death one of the worst things she has ever heard.

The impact of the deaths on the community has been overwhelming, she said.

"I don't even know what to say but it makes me sick," Van Arsdale said.