Injustice Was Soldier's Target

Casualty of Iraq Bomb, 22-Year-Old Felt Bond With Army

Family and friends of Army Spec. Christopher T. Neiberger gathered yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery under a thick gray sky to pay tribute to the

fallen soldier as he was laid to rest.

Neiberger, 22, of Gainesville, Fla., died Aug. 6 in Baghdad of wounds suffered from a makeshift bomb, the Department of Defense said. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, based at Schweinfurt, Germany.

More than 60 mourners, ignoring the light summer rain, watched as his flag-draped coffin was carried to his grave and stood as seven riflemen fired three-shot volleys toward the sky. Standing amid a sea of white tombstones, a bugler played taps before Brig. Gen. William B. Garrett presented the American flag that had covered Neiberger's coffin to the soldier's parents, Richard and Mary Neiberger.

Neiberger was the 360th member of the military killed in Iraq to be buried at Arlington.

Ami Neiberger-Miller remembers her brother as a long-haired college student wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of revolutionary Che Guevara.

"I thought he'd be the first Neiberger to form a branch of the Socialist Party, and the Army didn't seem like a great fit with that," she told the Gainesville Sun.

But Neiberger turned out to be a great fit and was truly happy, his family said. He was even considering going to West Point to make the Army his career.

He was last home for a two-week leave over Christmas, and he took the opportunity to talk to his former Boy Scout troop about his time in Iraq.

"He was always against injustice," his father told the Tallahassee Democrat. He said his son joined the Army because he wanted to stop the spread of tyranny and terrorism.

Neiberger graduated from Gainesville High School in 2003 and left the college town to attend Florida State University for two years. He decided to join the Army in 2005 and arrived in Iraq in September 2006 for a 15-month tour.

On the Web site Facebook, friends and family have posted tributes to Neiberger, describing him as someone who always had a smile on his face, a person who would celebrate the triumphs of others and was always ready with a joke.

Neiberger also loved to write and had gone on numerous missionary trips with his church.

"The last time we talked, it seemed that he was really satisfied with his life," Neiberger-Miller told the Sun. "I think he was getting tired of being over there, but he felt a tremendous sense of camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, and he really felt like what he was doing over there was making a difference."

In Gainesville on Sunday, hundreds of people attended a memorial service at Trinity United Methodist Church, where Robert Neiberger eulogized his brother, according to the Sun. He described him as a person who would stop to talk to a homeless man for a half-hour before giving him money.

"He thought that indifference is everything that is wrong with humanity," Neiberger said.

"There was a kindness about Chris that was remarkable," the Rev. Dan Johnson, pastor of Neiberger's church, told those at the memorial. In an interview yesterday, he added: "I think all his life, he was looking out for the other person."