Steven R. Givens
Profile
Age: 26
From: Mobile, Ala.
Assigned to the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.
Incident: Army Spc. Steven R. Givens died May 8 of injuries sustained from enemy small-arms fire in Balad, Iraq.
Died: May 08, 2005
Fallen soldier remembered for love of Iraqi children
Associated Press
MOBILE, Ala. — A 26-year-old soldier who was killed in Iraq by insurgents on Mother’s Day was remembered as a man who loved and helped children of the war-torn country.
Spc. Steven Ray Givens “made a difference in their lives,” Ron Pierce, the chaplain of the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office and the local FBI, said in his eulogy on Saturday.
Givens’ funeral service with full military honors drew several hundred people to the Gospel Lighthouse Independent Holiness Church.
Pierce noted that Givens had volunteered to serve his second tour of duty in Iraq so he could serve his country and help the children on the streets. “He said, ‘I can do something,’ and he did do something,” Pierce said.
Givens, who spent much of his childhood in Mobile, often asked family and friends from his hometown to send him Mardi Gras beads and candy for the kids in...