A July 1 Metro article about the death of Army Pfc. Justin Davis in Afghanistan incorrectly reported his mother's first name. It is Paula, not Patricia. The article also reported an incorrect date for when Davis will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The burial will be July 10, not July 16.
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Md. Soldier Lived, and Served, With Gusto
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Davis considered his own unit -- Alpha Company of the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division, based in Fort Drum, N.Y. -- to be an elite outfit and was proud to be an infantryman in one of the Army's most frequently deployed formations. In an e-mail to his cousin Kisha Spencer, he described what he did:
"Doin a lot of stuff cant really talk about . . . did some missions wit the CIA n other stuff jumpin outta helicopters you know doin the real job" -- unlike, he joked, his cousin Sgt. Josh Spencer, who is an Air Force satellite communications specialist who has served two tours in Iraq.
In another e-mail home, his mother remembered, he said "the Afghan people are cool" and promised to bring a teapot home for his mother. After serving his time in the military, he wanted to go to UCLA and become an actor, she said.
By yesterday afternoon, his MySpace Web page was flooded with tributes from friends from middle and high school and the short life he led afterward.
"I'll always have a spot in my heart for my amazingly fat, but still amazingly perfect big man," a woman named Melissa wrote.
"God took you cuz he needed another angel to watch over us all," someone named Jilliepoo wrote.
His mother, wearing a black and yellow Army T-shirt, expressed barely a trace of regret. She said she will miss the noise he brought to her quiet house: the television, the music, the stomping up and down the stairway.
"As much as I'm going to miss him . . . I know he died doing what he loved," she said. "I could have cried and begged him not to go, and he probably wouldn't have, because he loved his mom. But then he would have been miserable, and I would have been miserable because I would have known I was making him miserable."
Davis will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery on July 16.
"As weird as it sounds, that would have been a dream come true to him," his mother said.
Staff writer Hamil R. Harris and staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
