Freedom Remembered

Born: October 29, 1966 in Quitman, Mississippi
Died: July 19, 2008

First Sgt Roger L. Parker of Saluda, North Carolina was the son of Lawrence R. Parker and the late Faye McFarland Nelson. He moved to Polk County, North Carolina in 2001 coming from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He was an employee of the Hendersonville Social Security Administration and was a member of the Army National Guard who had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq in May of 2007. On occasion, his job was to monitor the progress of convoys from the communications center at Tallil. Roger was quiet and reserved, a thinker not a talker. In Iraq, he worked in the communications center, tracking the movements of convoys as they traveled the roads and passing on orders from the higher command. In letters written from Iraq, Roger expressed delight at the improvements in the Army’s accommodations since he had served in the Persian Gulf war. “We even have A.C., a fridge and will soon have cable. Can you believe that?” He inquired about his Siberian husky, Maggie, and said he was proud “to be part of something bigger than myself.” In May 2007, Roger returned home and settled into life with his wife, the two had married just before he was deployed. He went back to work at the Social Security Administration. But he seemed edgy and nervous, and talked about quitting his job. When he went to the V.A. for treatment, a doctor prescribed a mood stabilizer, lithium. But Roger was troubled by the deaths of Sgt Brandon Wallace and Sgt Joshua Schmit in Iraq. He felt that he should have been out there. In December, after a comrades suicide, Roger went to his wake, bringing a bracelet inscribed with the names of Sgts Wallace and Schmit. It was placed on his friends’ wrist in the coffin. He leaves his wife, Charlene, his father and stepmother, Lawrence R. and Terry Sayre Parker, a stepson, Jesse, a step-daughter, Julia, and a sister, Tana Parker. Roger died at age 41.

Burial information is unknown at this time.

The 1st Sgt Roger Lee Parker by Freedom Remembered, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.