07/01/2006

By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER  / Associated Press

Gov. Ted Kulongoski urged mourners at a memorial for Pfc. Tom Tucker on Saturday to "learn more from the way he lived than from the horrific way he had to die."

Kulongoski called Tucker, 25, kidnapped and killed by Iraqi insurgents, "the best Oregon had to give."

About 3,500 people came to the cavernous Events Center at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds to pay honor to the Madras soldier who had been in Iraq since February.

U.S. Rep. Greg Walden described courage as "not the absence of fear but the recognition of fear and the ability to move forward in spite of it."

He said Tucker "passed in abundance."

Walden said he did not know Tucker, "but, like most Oregonians indeed like all Americans, we owe him a debt of gratitude we will never be able to pay."

A slide show depicting Tucker from infancy through his teenage years, high school graduation and induction into the military detailed the life that was lost.

His sister, Tayva, said, "I can hear Tom telling me, 'Be strong. Don't stress out, and have fun.' "

She recalled a time when one of his high school classmates became a teenage mother, and her friends turned their backs on her.

She said he was the first one to go to the hospital with a rose for her.

The Rev. Lee McCloud of the New Hope Christian Center of Madras, which Tucker attended, recalled his last meetings with the soldier.

"Tom was wrestling questions that are on all of our minds: What's life all about?" McCloud said

He said Tucker told him, "All I want to know is that all is OK."

A funeral procession left for the Mount Jefferson Memorial Park in Madras, 30 miles to the north, where Tucker was to be buried.

It wound through the Madras-area towns of Culver and Metolius near the Tucker family residence, and was to go through Madras, where Tucker graduated from high school in 1999. Yellow ribbons were abundant in the town Saturday, along with business signs that carried expressions of support for the family and remembrances of Tucker.

Tucker worked in landscaping, construction and other jobs before joining the military in July 2005.

Brig. Gen. Gregg Martin of the 101st Airborne Division said Tucker "gave all a mortal can give. He belongs to history," quoting Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

"Private First Class Thomas Lowell Tucker's heroism is our legacy that we will never let go."

The Oregon governor's office lists Tucker as the 63rd soldier from Oregon or with strong Oregon ties to die in Iraq.

Tucker and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston vanished from a checkpoint about 12 miles south of Baghdad known for ambushes of American troops. A third soldier, Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield, Mass., was found dead at the scene.

Tucker and Menchaca apparently were killed after they were captured

The bodies of Menchaca and Tucker were found the evening of June 19 after a search by 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, dubbed Operation Fallen Eagle. The remains were not recovered until the next morning, after an Iraqi civilian warned that bombs had been planted in the area.

One of the soldier's bodies had been booby-trapped. Army officials said at least one had been beheaded.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers and said the successor to the late terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had "slaughtered" them, according to a Web statement that could not be authenticated. The language in the statement also suggested the men were beheaded.

The bodies were sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for DNA testing.