Georgia Town Making Funeral Plans Again

Once again, war’s hurt found this town of brick and steeples.

For the second time in as many weeks, Conyers residents Monday turned to funeral planning after word that Diego Fernando Rincon, a 19-year-old private who once led cheers at the high school here, was among four soldiers killed during a suicide car-bombing at a highway checkpoint in central Iraq over the weekend.

Last week, mourners took part in a memorial service for Spc. Jamaal Addison at a Conyers church. Addison, 22, from Roswell, Ga., died during a March 23 ambush on his unit, the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company.

The others killed in the car-bomb attack were Pfc. Michael Russell Creighton Weldon, 20, of Palm Bay, Fla.; Cpl. Michael Curtin, 23, of Howell, N.J.; and Sgt. Eugene Williams, 24, of Highland, N.Y. All were members of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), based at Ft. Stewart in Hinesville, Ga. Also Monday, seven more servicemen were confirmed dead.

In Conyers, a community of 11,000 about 25 miles east of Atlanta, residents considered the meaning of the latest death, made more disturbing because it involved a suicide attack.

When a fifth-grader asked Mayor Randy Mills to explain it during a classroom appearance Monday morning, he repeated words his pastor had offered in church a day earlier. “There are some things you don’t understand,” Mills, a furniture company owner, recalled telling the children. “There’s a higher power that does understand, and you have to leave it at that.”

At City Hall, the flags were at half-staff. Around the postcard-quaint downtown, yellow ribbons fluttered and neighbors talked of death. “I hate to hear about any of them,” said David Toney, who owns a barbershop on Main Street. “But it’s part of what we have to accept. Everybody’s very grateful for the lives that are being given.”

Teachers described Rincon as a free spirit who was active in gymnastics, theater and cheering before graduating from Salem High School in 2001. They can picture him in his trademark yellow Mustang.

“For me, it’s just hard to believe he is gone. He was so full of life, such a great people person, so energetic,” said Jerry Smith, Rincon’s drama teacher.

Leslie Montemayor, the mother of Rincon’s girlfriend, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Rincon came with his family to the United States from Colombia in 1989 to escape drug-related violence. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an important reason he chose to join the military, she said.

At 19, Rincon was the youngest of the soldiers listed as dead on the battlefield. The oldest was Marine Staff Sgt. James Cawley, 41, of Layton, Utah, who was killed Saturday when he was run over by a Humvee in the predawn darkness.

His death was mourned in Salt Lake City by relatives and members of the Mormon Church and at the Salt Lake City Police Department. Cawley, a Marine reservist, was a gang detective and member of the SWAT team .

Cawley, who had served 12 years in the Marines before going to reserve status, was called to active duty after the Sept. 11 attacks. Police colleagues said he was valued for his military background and maturity.

His sister, Julie Cawley Hanson, said Cawley had joined the military out of “a strong sense of what was right and wrong, and to be a protector -- of his family and our country. Nobody loved this country more than my brother, and he died a hero.”

He was married with two young children.

The latest report brings to 44 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in the war. Seven have been captured.

The list of missing in action grew to 16. Those newly added to the missing are: Army Sgt. Edward J. Anguiano, 24, of Brownsville, Texas, whose convoy was ambushed; and Marine Sgt. Fernando Padilla-Ramirez, 26, of Yuma, Ariz.

Defense Department officials said the body of Marine Sgt. Bradley S. Korthaus, 29, of Davenport, Iowa, had been found. Korthaus was listed as missing after being last seen trying to swim across the Saddam Canal in Iraq to set up a security post. He was accompanied by a second Marine, Cpl. Evan James, 20, of La Harpe, Ill., who drowned.

Three California-based Marines died after their tank plunged off a bridge.

The crew consisted of: Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez Flores, 21, of Duarte; Lance Cpl. Patrick T. O’Day, 20, of Santa Rosa, Calif.; and Staff Sgt. Donald C. May Jr., 31, of Richmond, Va.

Also confirmed dead was Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas A. Blair, 24, of Broken Arrow, Okla., who was among eight North Carolina-based Marines who disappeared during fighting on the outskirts of Nasiriyah, Iraq. Two other servicemen were killed in separate vehicle accidents -- Marine Lance Cpl. William W. White, 24, of New York City, and Army Sgt. Roderick A. Solomon, 32, of Fayetteville, N.C.

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Times researchers Rennie Sloan and Lynn Marshall contributed to this report.