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Philadelphia buries a fallen soldier

May- 8-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

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By Lora Hines

PHILADELPHIA — Residents lined streets Friday to honor Sgt. Joshua Ladd and mourn with his family.

Ladd, 20, of the 367th Maintenance Company, died May 1 near Mosul, Iraq, when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his convoy. He is the 14th soldier from Mississippi or with Mississippi ties to die since fighting in Iraq began last year.

Ladd's death came following the monthlong April siege of Fallujah. It was the deadliest month for American forces, with a death toll of 136.

Trish Rickles Ward and her son, Steryot Holland, stood an hour in the hot afternoon sun to see Ladd's funeral procession. About 100 people stood silently and waved small American flags as Ladd's white hearse headed to East Lawn Cemetery.

"He was a member of our community, a member of our town," Ward said. "We should honor him."

Ward closed the store she owns, K's Family Shoes, to honor Ladd, she said. She said she's acquainted with Ladd relatives but that had little to do with her decision. She would have closed the store and taken her son out of school no matter what, she said.

Mourners began packing McClain-Hays Funeral Home more than an hour before services. They wept as a recording of John Michael Montgomery's song, Letters From Home, was played.


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