Gaithersburg soldier killed in Afghanistan

Military investigates ‘friendly fire’ death

Wednesday, July 5, 2006

When Paula Davis spoke by telephone to her son around Memorial Day, she told him there would be a surprise waiting when he returned in August to his Gaithersburg home from where he’d been serving with the Army in Afghanistan.

Their townhouse basement, long unfinished, would finally be done.

‘‘You’re not going to believe the transformation,” Paula recalls telling her son, Pfc. Justin Ray Davis, during their brief conversation. ‘‘It’s beautiful.”

But Justin Davis, whose mother said he was ‘‘excited about coming home,” would neither see the new basement nor hear his mother’s voice again, as the 19-year-old infantryman was killed about a month later during combat patrol.

His death, a shock to many who knew him as more than eager to serve in the military amid a war, occurred June 25 in Korengal Outpost, Afghanistan, near the mountainous Kunar Province in the eastern part of the country, the U.S. military announced Saturday.

Authorities are investigating his death as a possible friendly-fire incident. He was killed by indirect fire, a term used for mortar shelling, according to the Pentagon.

As of Monday the investigation was still pending, said Sheldon Smith, an Army spokesman.

‘‘If there is even a possibility of friendly fire, there is an investigation,” he said. It is undetermined how long it could take.

In the meantime, his mother, who learned of his death Sunday while on business in Wyoming, says she is too busy making his final arrangements to worry about herself.

‘‘I’m doing what I have to do to make sure everything is done right for him,” Paula said Monday. ‘‘I can grieve later.”

Services planned A viewing is scheduled for July 7 at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Rockville and funeral services are planned the next day at Interdenominational Church in Gaithersburg. He will be buried July 10 at Arlington National Cemetery.

A 2005 graduate of Col. Zadok Magruder High School in Rockville — whose Web site has posted his senior photo and details of his wake and burial services — Davis was a standout full back on the football team and a member of Junior ROTC, a training program.

Martha Schaerr, president of the school’s PTSA, said the news was a serious shock to the community.

‘‘We are very proud of Justin’s service to the country and brokenhearted at his death,” she said.

The PTSA is working with the school to memorialize its fallen alumnus, Schaerr said.

Friends have written more than 400 messages of heartache and disbelief on ‘‘JD’s” MySpace blog, posting everything from poems to pictures as a way to say goodbye.

Paula, describing her son as a martial arts enthusiast and aspiring actor, said she hadn’t heard anything new from the military about the investigation into her son’s death.

According to Army data, 17 soldiers have died from friendly fire in the past four years — 10 in Iraq and seven in Afghanistan.

Davis had been assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Divison, of Fort Drum, N.Y.

‘‘We had serious debates as to whether he should join the military because of the war that was going on,” Paula said. ‘‘I know I had to let him go.”