Town mourns another soldier killed in Iraq

Carroll died Sunday about 20 miles south of Baghdad when the vehicle he was in was hit by shrapnel from a roadside bomb. Three other soldiers, two of them from McKenzie, were injured.

The 23-year-old is the eighth Tennessee Guardsman to die since the war began in 2003, and the second soldier from McKenzie. In April 2004, Marine Capt. Brent Morel was killed in a firefight with insurgents in Fallujah.

Dozens of Carroll’s colleagues in the Tennessee National Guard and hundreds of family members and friends attended the funeral, The Jackson Sun reported.

“If you were his friend, you knew you were loved by him for life,” said Lauren Anderson, a friend from McKenzie High School. “He made a safe haven for all of us.”

“The pain I saw in those young people’s faces last night (at the visitation) told me how much Dusty was loved,” said Debra Carroll, Dustin’s mother.

While the Carroll family spent most of the day receiving mourners before the funeral, protests developed outside, the Sun reported.

Several members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., demonstrated across the street in this town about 110 miles northeast of Memphis.

The head of the church, Fred Phelps, is known for his heated rhetoric against homosexuality, and his church members have been protesting soldier funerals nationwide. Phelps has said that the Iraq war and deaths of U.S. troops are God’s punishment for a nation that has become too accepting of homosexuality.

Phelps was not present Thursday, but about a dozen members of the church were surrounded by about 40 law enforcement officers and guardsmen.

“We heard from them Monday, found out they were within their rights and we’ve been dealing with it ever since,” McKenzie Police Chief Harry Cooper said.

The demonstrations outside couldn’t be heard during the funeral, which concluded with Brig. Gen. Jimmy Welch — commander of the 194th Engineer Brigade in Jackson — presenting a folded U.S. flag to Carroll’s mother.

A second folded flag was briefly placed on the coffin, then presented to Carroll’s father. The Carrolls divorced several years ago.

“This is the third time I’ve been at a memorial service for Dusty,” said Welch, who was part of two memorials held by his unit in southern Iraq before he was called home for his father-in-law’s funeral a few days ago. “I hope we get our guys home quickly, before we do this again.”