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Dusty and Mom, Debra Carroll,
before his deployment to Fort Sill Oklahoma in November,
2004.
As night falls over the city of McKenzie Sunday evening,
Debra Carroll is closer to accepting the loss of her son,
Dusty, some 12 hours after receiving notification of his
death. The 23-year-old, all-American boy—who graduated from
McKenzie High School in 2000—was killed in Iraq when an
improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near the new Humvee in which he was a passenger. Of the three other soldiers in the vehicle, Debra
says, two (Robert Gulledge from the McKenzie National Guard
unit and Timmy Dyal of the Huntingdon unit, who volunteered
to fill needed slots in the mission) were treated and
released in Baghdad while another (Chris Lewis from
the Milan unit) was in critical condition at the time
families were notified.
The Milan and McKenzie units together make up Company A of
the 230th Engineer Battalion. The men left for Iraq in
January this year amid an outpouring of support from the
community. Sunday, that support took on new form as friends
called on Dusty’s family members and churches abandoned
Sunday night sermons to lift in prayer his family as well as
other soldiers and families.
Company A's tenure in the war was expected to last about a
year and hope was high as the months passed by with no
casualties. Soldiers taking turns coming home for two weeks
of leave seemed optimistic, with some offering good reports
about progress made in the oppressed country where, despite
good intentions not unlike World War II's effort,
freedom-bearing war has brought its own miseries.
Lauren Anderson and Lindsey Reid show their support
for Dusty as the convoy pulled out of town on November
18, 2004, when the troops headed for their staging
area in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
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Talks of relative freedom, greater
comforts, and frequent phone calls and emails home had lulled
many into thinking the men were in little danger, with the
assumption that their mission was one of rebuilding the
nation, hopefully in a region less dangerous than others to
hometown boys and men.
Dusty's father, Pat, is among the soldiers serving with the
Milan detachment. He'll be coming home now to help Debra
plan their son's funeral. She says Dusty's body will arrive
in ten days or so and that, at his funeral, friends and
family will be offered the opportunity to make comments
about his life. That decision was made following a day of
visits from his friends; a day Debra says has been "a roller
coaster."
Her emotions have run the gamut, beginning with anger when
she was awakened from a peaceful sleep to the devastating
news, brought by a military chaplain and another National
Guard soldier. Her husband of ten years, John Brimm, was
outside when the soldiers arrived.
"I knew what it was when they drove up," he says. "When they
got out, I could see the chaplain's emblem on his hat and
the expression on their faces. I said, 'I know why you're
here—tell me.' So they told me. I told them to go away; they
had the wrong place."
Debra looks down as she admits, "I wasn't very nice to the
chaplain today; I told him to shut ** up; I didn't want to
hear it," she continues, confessing, "I don't agree with
this war... He (Dusty) went over there hoping to improve
things: they both went there eagerly to help and get back
home and, when they got there, they realized the task is too
big."
Dusty mans a machine gun while on patrol in Iraq.
She recounts the events of her son's death:
"I was told they were in the first brand-new Humvee to be
delivered over there," she says, describing the specially
armored vehicle designed to enhance the safety of its
occupants. "Pat said they all felt real good about going off
in it... I was told they were driving down the road and one
of the roadside bombs went off... I was told shrapnel hit
Dusty in the back of the head and killed him instantly."
From Dusty's father, she relays the message that other
soldiers of Company A spoke of what a hard worker he was.
"He had a lot of respect from the people he worked with,"
she says. "He was over there because it was a chore he felt
like he had to do; he had joined the Guard and he was going
to make the best of it and do what he had to do."
Her angers resurfaces when she speaks of the futility of
war, though she acknowledges terrorism strikes without
provocation and that walking away, despite her good
teachings, doesn't appease the enemy the world faces today.
"I always tried to teach him that—if someone was mean to
him—to try to turn around and walk away. And I think my
biggest fear was that it would be hard for him to make the
transition to soldier; having to kill people when he was
raised for 20-something years not to be mean to people. And
Dusty was not raised as a prejudiced person; it was hard for
him to realize people were going to be mean to him over
there. This is their religion—they're fighting for what
they've been brought up to believe is correct—how are you
going to change anybody's mind on that?"
Dusty entered the national Guard on September 15,
2003, just after the events of 9-11. |
Dusty made the decision to join the National Guard while
visiting his mom in the Virgin Islands, where she worked for
a year. After seeing his mother, a free-lance ultrasound
technician, able to choose her locale, whether rural or
exotic, at good wages, he wanted to go to school to become
an X-ray technologist.
"He said he wanted to see about getting a loan or join the
Guard so he could pay his way through school," Debra says.
Pat had joined the National Guard soon after Dusty's birth
and was already a member of the Milan unit. Dusty began the
process of joining the Guard in July 2001, once his mom
returned to Tennessee. Together, they discussed with the
recruiter the odds of having to go to war.
"They were very slim," says Debra, "and they had a sign-on
bonus and schooling, so it just seemed to be the right thing
to do... and then 9-11 happened."
Debra and Dusty had envisioned, not war, but humanitarian
missions like providing aid following natural disasters such
as tornadoes and hurricanes.
"He could have handled that," she says. "He was a very
tender-hearted young man and he poured out his heart to
people when they were hurting."
A note included with a
Mother's Day card to his mom is testimony to Dusty's loving
character.
After 9-11, however, despite the fact that his paperwork was
still unprocessed, he decided to go forward with his plan.
He applied $4,000 (half of his $8,000 enlistment bonus, the
other half of which he would receive in 2006) to his
education, enrolling right away at Jackson State Community
College.
Debra said his phone calls from Iraq always focused on what
he would do when he got home. He'd met someone there who
instilled in him the idea of becoming a physician assistant:
whatever he pursued, he knew it would be in the medical
field. His girlfriend, 21-year-old Virginia Beal, who lives
next door to Debra, was also a student at Jackson State with
intentions of pursuing a medical career.
Other local members of Dusty's family include his sister,
30-year-old Robin Jones, who lives in Milan, her soon-to-be
three-year-old daughter, Zoe, and his step-mother Barbara,
from McKenzie. His grandparents are Norton and Jeanette
McQueen of Paris, the late Margaret McQueen, and Mary
Carroll of Henry and the late Richard Carroll, who died in
December before Dusty and Pat's deployment.
Dusty's death was another of many tragedies for Debra, some
of which led to an early realization that death is just a
part of life.
"I've had people all my life die," she says. "When I was a
young girl, two of my brothers died at a very young age. No
one ever took the time to explain death to me so I always
thought everybody I knew was going to die young."
In May 2003, Debra and John had just returned to Tennessee,
after a year-long work assignment in Hawaii, when Robin's
eight-year-old son, Ryan Scott Cowan, was killed in the May
4 tornadoes in Jackson.
Debra holds her grandson, Ryan, who was killed in the may 4,
2003 tornadoes in Jackson. Also pictured are her children,
Robin and Dusty.
Nevertheless, Debra says, "I have peace because God has
given me peace. I don't have a bad feeling about Dusty's
death because I believe in predestination and I believe he
would have died wherever he was on July 31... and I think
God comforts me that way."
Confiding that, when Dusty left, she had felt comfort that
God was going to take care of him, she says, "I feel like
this is the way he was going to take care of him: I was told
he didn't suffer and I thank God for that. It could have
been so much worse... To know he went instantly to me was a
blessing from God. I work in the health field and I see
people suffer every day and I think that's the saddest
thing: to suffer before you die. But the fact is, we all are
put here and we all are going to die."
Dusty in kindergarten (above) and his high school
graduation photo (below).
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Adding to her comfort is her knowledge of Dusty's
salvation through Jesus Christ. He was saved at the age of
14 at the Methodist church in Henry. As a youngster, living
on Cole Street, he attended nearby Long Heights Baptist
Church and went to day care at First Baptist Church while
his mom attended Bethel College. Debra has special memories
of Vee Spivey, Derrinda Wade, and Charlotte Verner caring
for him at the day care center.
"They just loved him to death," she says, recalling that,
years later, "Sally Chadwick had him in algebra... He was
not a math wiz but all his teachers would comment on how
sweet he was; how quiet he was. He was a little terror to
me," she continues, smiling at the memory, "and I would
dread going to parent teacher conferences, but they would
always say, 'Oh, he's so sweet...' He could steal your heart
in a minute."
Originally from Union City and Milan, Debra and Pat moved
first to Henry, where they lived when Dusty was born on
September 4, 1981, then to McKenzie, when he was 15 months
old.
Dressed in a red snowsuit,
Dusty and other children of his Cole Street, McKenzie,
neighborhood pose with a gigantic snowman.
"He was always like most little boys, wanting to get into
everything," his mom reminisces. "He played T-ball and all
the levels all the way up to high school, and in high school
he played football a few years. He was outgoing in sports;
he enjoyed them and he always tried to win."
Beyond sports, the adjectives she uses to describe her son
all seem to equal "love".
"He was big-hearted," she says. "He was a very loving and
caring young man—little boy—all his life—he was always
giving away stuff to kids or anybody that needed it. She
continues, reveling in the memory, "He'd say, 'They needed
it more than I did; now buy me another one.'"
John recalls a time when Dusty gave his last $20 to a fellow
soldier who was down on his luck and had lost his job.
Dusty smiles in the mirror, caught frosting his hair
during a visit with his mom in Hawaii, where she
worked for a time. Taped to the mirror is her
inspirational message, "What we concentrate on we
become. Once we have learned to control attention, we
can concentrate on anything we wish. This opens to us
enormous possibilities." She often left notes for both
her children—sometimes spiritual, sometimes
motivational—to encourage them in life.
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"He was very polite," Debra adds, smiling, "As a matter
of fact, when he was in high school, we had gone to some
kind of event and (high school principal) Mr. (Terry) Howell
was sitting behind me. He said, 'I just want to tell you
that your son, Dusty, is the most polite teenager we have in
school.'"
She recalls that, in the 1980s, Dusty had won the role as
Little Mr. McKenzie alongside Little Miss McKenzie, Amy
Howell. The two went on to ride the float at the Strawberry
Festival.
"He didn't have his two front teeth," she mentions, trying
to gauge his age at the time, which she took to be six or
seven.
Despite Mr. Howell's appraisal, Debra smiles through her
broken heart as she recalls, "He was always doing something,
trying to get out of going to school. He was a typical
boy... a typical boy. He always had a good time and always
had plenty of energy to play."
Her façade crumbles and she sobs, then, smiling through her
tears, she shares another story of Dusty at age five. His
grandmother had just died when Debra had to have gallbladder
surgery. Walking bent over as she recovered, with Dusty
walking beside her, also bent over, it seemed sweet that he
mimicked his mother. But when she was able to straighten up
and he didn't, Debra and Pat realized a hernia he'd had from
birth had worsened. He underwent surgery as well, and his
mom surprised him with a big bunch of balloons. Coming home
from the hospital, she was carrying the balloons toward the
house when he asked for them. As he released them and
watched them float into the sky, Debra asked, "What did you
do that for?"
"I sent the balloons to Grandma," he said.
"That was Dusty," says Debra. "He was always sweet like
that."
Dusty enjoys good times in
Florida with closest friends, Mickey French and Blake
Warren.
She recalls he was a Boy Scout and at one time decided he
wanted to add bull riding to his repertoire of daring-do.
"That didn't go over too well with me," she says, noting
that, as a result, the effort was short-lived.
He and his dad, however, for his 16th birthday, headed to
Paris where he had both a flying lesson and jumped from the
plane in a sky-diving adventure that stoked his appetite for
thrills.
"He loved that," says Debra, recalling, as well, a ski trip
with the (Dr. Volker) Winkler family and his love for snow
boarding.
Another good memory is when she and John packed up to go to
San Francisco with Dusty in tow, shortly before he headed to
Fort Leonard Wood for training.
"It took us two weeks to get there," she says. "We saw Death
Valley, Area 51—we saw things we'd never seen before."
With the day winding to a close, she ventured she would be
up all night with her memories. And she expressed impatience
with life.
"The meanest thing God could do to me now is to make me live
to 90 or a hundred years old," she says, "because I'd like
to see him before that; I want to be with him."
[Click here
for news story with additional photo.]
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