Army Pfc. Justin R. Davis, 19, of Gaithersburg, Md.; assigned to 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.; died June 25 when he came in contact with indirect fire while on patrol during combat operations in Korengal, Afghanistan.
HE LOVED THE MILITARY
His mother, Paula Davis, [said] that Davis "was passionate" about joining the service.
"He would always say, 'This is my dream. I am going to follow it,'" Paula Davis told the newspaper. "He died doing what he loved."
"It was a calling," she said. "It was a life that fit him."
"This would be a dream come true for him," Paula Davis of Gaithersburg said after she watched her big, brash 19-year-old son buried [at Arlington national Cementary] yesterday. "That's what he wanted to be: a hero."
She has the hard evidence of her son's heroism even if she does not have answers about his death June 25, which the Defense Department is investigating as a possible friendly fire incident. In addition to the Purple Heart for being wounded in battle, her son was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star for his service with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, where he had been deployed since March.
The Defense Department said he was killed by indirect fire, which often refers to mortar attacks, while on patrol in eastern Kunar province. Military officials gave the medals to his mother and his father, Dennis Johnson, in a ceremony before the burial. The citations did not describe the incidents in which he earned them.
Davis said she had been told that he was in a "hostile environment" but did not know what happened.
"Either way, it doesn't make any difference to me," she said after the ceremony. "It's not going to bring my boy back. If it was friendly, it wasn't intentional."
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