
WASHTUCNA, Wash. — Weeks after arriving in Iraq in March, Spc. Blain Matthew Ebert asked people in his hometown to send clothes and shoes for Iraqi children.
Residents of this dusty hamlet about halfway between the Tri-Cities and Spokane responded with box after box of clothing, candy and other goods.
On Monday, Ebert, 22, a tank commander in the 4th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas, was killed at a roadblock near Baghdad.
“He spent every moment over there worrying about those people,” his father, Michael Ebert, said Tuesday. “In his eyes, love and the future of Iraq were going to come through the...