Arron R. Clark, Army Specialist -- Rest In Peace

Arron R. Clark, 20

Army, Specialist

Based: Darmstadt, Germany

440th Signal Battalion, 22nd Signal Brigade, V Corps

Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom

Died: December 5, 2003 
Baghdad (eastern part), Iraq

Single

Gender: Male

Hometown: Chico

High School: Chico High (Chico)

Burial: Glen Oaks Memorial Park, Chico

For several months, Army Spc. Arron R. Clark gave soldiers serving with him in Iraq his two-week passes, which would have allowed him to visit his mother in Northern California.

"Mom, they have babies they have not seen," he explained in letters to his mother, Tamela Lyne Clark, 45, of Chico. "I hope you understand."

The 20-year-old Chico native promised his mother he would come home on his scheduled Jan. 8 return to the United States to attend the Army Ranger School.

But Clark was killed Dec. 5 when an explosive device detonated next to his Humvee in Baghdad.

"He was my only child," his mother said Thursday as she waited in Sacramento for her son's body, which was being escorted home by his cousin, Lisa Herrik, 28, of Chico, who is an Army helicopter pilot stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Read the entire LA Times article about Army Specialist Arron Ray Clark here and read more here and find messages and remembrances here.

The casket of Army Spc. Arron R. Clark of Chico, Calif., is moved Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2003, from Neighborhood Church to a hearse after a funeral service in Chico, Calif. At right center in the rear is Clark's mother, Lynn Clark. (AP Photo/Chico Enterprise-Record, Ty Barbour)
This photograph is found here.