William A. Farrar, Jr., Army, Specialist -- Rest In Peace

William A. Farrar Jr., 20

Army, Specialist
Based: Darmstadt, Germany
127th Military Police Company, 709th Military Police Battalion, 18th Military Police Brigade
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: May 11, 2007
Iskandariya, Iraq
Single
Gender: Male
Hometown: Redlands
High School: Palm Springs High (Palm Springs)
Burial: Riverside National Cemetery

His e-mails from the war were upbeat. "He actually liked eating the food, which was the funniest thing I heard," said the elder Farrar, whose son was a famously picky eater. "He talked about his computer games and asked about his younger sisters."

Farrar wasn't one to pour out his feelings about life in the war. He was the quietest of three brothers, a sensitive, patient, determined young man with a dry wit. He and his father would watch the Mel Brooks comedy "Spaceballs" over and over, until they could beat the characters to their lines. His favorite hobby was playing paintball.

Farrar would always be there to play games with his younger twin sisters, now 11, when his brothers would not.

Fallen Heroes Project

In April, his dad was trying to coordinate a vacation to visit family in Wisconsin in anticipation of his son's finishing his tour, presumably at the end of this year. Farrar told him he had a girlfriend, Nancy, in Germany -- his first serious one -- and wasn't sure if he could make it to the U.S. on his short leave. That was the last his dad heard from him.

In the late afternoon of May 11, an Air Force chaplain and an Army sergeant in full uniform knocked on the front door of the Farrars' home in Redlands.

Farrar, 20, was killed that day when his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb in Iskandariya, south of Baghdad.

"We always thought about it," Farrar's father said. "But you never think it's going to actually happen. Personally, I never thought this would happen."

His mother, Sally Bors, found out the next day at the Palm Springs motorcycle shop she owns. "A gentleman in a uniform approached me," Bors told the Desert Sun newspaper. "I kept telling myself that he wasn't in an Army uniform -- that he wasn't looking for me."

As a result of his actions on May 11, Farrar, a graduate of Palm Springs High School, was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He also received an Army combat medal. Farrar was buried May 25 at Riverside National Cemetery.

Read the entire LA Times article about Army Specialist William A. Farrar Jr. here.

Find more at Stripes and at Military Times.

Visit Specialist William A. Farrar Jr.'s Guest Book.

A firing party stands outside the chapel at Cambrai-Fritsch Kaserne during the memorial ceremony for Spc. William A. Farrar Jr.,

Army Specialist William A. Farrar Jr. previously remembered on Boom3.