Christopher R. Webb, Army, Staff Sergeant -- Rest In Peace

Christopher R. Webb, 28

Army, Staff Sergeant
Based: Ft. Hood, Texas
2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: March 7, 2007
Baghdad (northwest of), Iraq
Married, 1 child
Gender: Male
Hometown: Winchester
High School: West Valley High (Hemet)
Burial: Alturas Cemetery, Alturas, Calif.

As a top-notch Army recruiter, Christopher R. Webb stood out because he had lived his message about serving his country, seeing the world and growing up. His honesty also made him effective -- he never claimed that being a soldier would be easy, safe or somewhere other than Iraq.
But it bothered the Hemet-area native that his own assignments had been relatively risk-free, in South Korea as well as Washington state and the recruiting station in Red Bank, N.J.

The Army wanted Webb to remain a recruiter; he opted for foreign duty. And when the moment arrived last October to leave for Iraq, he had long been ready, though it tore him up to leave behind his wife and infant daughter.
On March 7, the 28-year-old staff sergeant was among three soldiers killed when a roadside bomb exploded near their Humvee in Baghdad.
...
Also killed were Spc. Shawn P. Rankinen and Spc. Michael D. Rivera.
...
The occasional boisterousness began to fade as Webb made sergeant and became a model recruiter.
But he couldn't relate what things were like in Iraq: "He had a lot of guilt over that," said his mother, Teresa Bullock, a counselor who lives in Perris. "He kept telling me that he wanted to go over there because he was putting soldiers in and he knew a lot of them were ending up over there."
It got worse when his younger brother, Coy, wanted to sign up.
"Chris did not want to do it," his mother said. "He begged me to have Coy talk to someone else. He has this fear of something happening to Coy. But Coy told us if we didn't do something, he'd see another recruiter here in town."
Webb reluctantly agreed to sign up his brother. "We had to make it clear that if something did happen, we would not hold Chris responsible in any way," his mother said.
The Army wanted Webb to stay stateside as a recruiter, "but it wasn't for him," his wife said.

In addition to his wife, 6-month-old daughter, mother, stepfather and brother, Webb is survived by his sister, Susan, of Perris; his father, Robert Webb Jr. of Golden Valley, Ariz.; his grandmother, Pat Webb; and his grandfather, Lawrence Hoffmann.

Read the entire LA Times article about Army Staff Sergeant Christopher R. Webb here, find more at Military Times and the Iraq Page and visit Sergeant Christopher R. Webb's Guest Book.